Ingmar Björn Nolting | Lumix Festival für jungen Bildjournalismus

Ingmar Björn Nolting
Hinter Fassaden

The 18-storey Iduna-Zentrum consists of two connected residential complexes. It is estimated that more than 500 people live here; there are no exact figures. Along with many Roma families, the complex is home to drug addicts, migrants, welfare recipients and students, many of whom move out after only a brief stay.

Wolfgang* poses for a portrait in his one-room apartment, where he has been living for two decades. As the son of a teacher at foreign schools, he grew up between Cairo, Tokyo and Berlin. After protracted teacher training at university, a moratorium on hiring meant he was unable to find a long-term position as an intermediate secondary-school teacher. He now lives in old-age poverty on a pension topped up to the minimum level. *Name has been changed.

Christian* and a friend recover in Tobias’* apartment after having taken too much contaminated heroin the previous night. When Christian was recently released from prison, he had nowhere to live and found temporary shelter with Tobias on the eighth floor. *Names have been changed.

Wolfgang’s* bathroom. Wolfgang collects books, DVDs, old computers and souvenirs from around the world in his apartment. When he moved from his inner-city flat into the Iduna-Zentrum, he had to make do with less space than before. Since then, his collection has been piling up to the ceiling of his single-room apartment. He cannot throw anything away, nor does he want to. *Name has been changed.

Maja* and Jan* in the elevator. In 2013, Maja injected heroin into her own groin and had to spend six months in hospital. Her leg had to be amputated. Jan lost his job as a geriatric nurse. Since then, the two have lived on welfare and Jan looks after Maja. They regularly attend goth festivals; this keeps them going. *Names have been changed.

Katja* and her ex-boyfriend after consuming MDMA at Tobias’* apartment. At this point, they had been awake for three days. They were a couple from 2013 until 2014 and lived together in a flat in the Iduna-Zentrum. *Names have been changed.

When Katja* got her dog from some acquaintances last summer, he was quite aggressive. Now he doesn’t need to wear his muzzle as often. *Name has been changed.

Kelly* and her six-month-old daughter in their two-room apartment. Since Kelly fled Liberia, she has spent a lot of time with her tablet. She tries to keep up with her family and friends in Liberia with video calls. *Name has been changed.

Florian* and Julia* move out of the residential complex. During their studies, the couple lived in a three-room apartment in the Iduna-Zentrum. They describe their relationship with the complex as “love-hate”. *Names have been changed.

Anton* poses for a portrait on the balcony of his one-room apartment, which his father bought for him. After Anton has completed his studies, his father would like to rent the apartment to welfare recipients. Because Anton is the only tenant who leaves the high-rise in a suit every day, his friends call him “Prince Iduna”. *Name has been changed.

Miroslav* shoots up with MDPV on a balcony on the 18th storey. On this day, he became a father. He dreams of moving to Switzerland to be with the mother of his child. In order to find a vein in the darkness, he leaned his mobile phone against the wall to use as a flashlight. He was visiting people in one of the apartments, but was not allowed to take drugs there. *Name has been changed.

Anna* has been living with a friend at the Iduna-Zentrum since being thrown out of her own apartment. She plans to stay just a few days. *Name has been changed.

Julia* vacuums a few days before moving out of the apartment. *Name has been changed.

There is a garbage chute on every floor. Nonetheless, garbage is thrown onto the projecting roof in front of Julia* and Florian’s* apartment every day. When someone threw live barbecue coals from a balcony, the garbage started to smoulder. Florian put out the incipient fire with a pail of water. *Names have been changed.

Steve* poses for a portrait in the stairwell. He comes from a family of doctors and sees himself as the black sheep. As a child, he suffered from his father’s violence. He broke off contact while he was a student. When there was a fire at his student apartment, he injured both feet when he jumped out of the window. He did not complete his studies and started drinking too much. He is now unable to work and lives on welfare. *Name has been changed.

When the 19-storey Iduna-Zentrum was built in the early 1970s, it was considered Göttingen’s most prestigious property. It featured 407 apartments, a swimming pool, sauna and shopping centre. Anyone who wanted to live here had to be able to afford it. However, over time the anonymous living model became increasingly unattractive. Many owners and renters moved out, and welfare recipients as well as refugees from the former Yugoslavia moved in. As the resident structure changed, so did the building’s reputation. The concrete block is now considered not only an eyesore, but a social flashpoint as well. The shopping centre is gone; the sauna and pool have closed. Most 1970s-era high-rises share the same fate – the residential complexes have become symbols of a failed urban-planning utopia. For this long-term photography project, Ingmar Björn Nolting moved into the building for five months and portrayed welfare recipients, refugees, drug addicts, students and pensioners living in old-age poverty.

Architecture
Community
Drugs
Everyday Life
Germany

3 Questions

1. The door opener: Can you describe a formative moment in your career as a visual journalist?

I don’t think there was a single formative moment. It was more the many impressions and insights that you get as a documentary photographer. For me, photography has always been a key to the topics and life realities that interest me. The encounters my work has made possible have been both formative and enriching.

2. The decisive moment: When did you first encounter your topic and why did you decide to cover it photographically?

When I started working on my project in Göttingen in autumn 2016, my brother still lived there. I visited him quite often and heard the stories surrounding that building. I’ve always been interested in people who live on the “edge” of our society. It was important for me to speak about it on equal terms. This is why I was preoccupied for so long with the building and some of the residents.

3. The future: What could the visual journalism of the future be like?

Visual journalism will become more diverse, conceptually and in visual language. At least I hope it will. The future belongs to young photographers who intensively examine their topics and think about the attitude, imagery and presentation of their work. This will lead to new narrative forms that will endure, even in an ever-accelerating, digitised world.

Interview

Wie hast du Kontakt zu den Bewohner*innen in dem Haus aufgenommen und wie hat sich deine Beziehung zu den Menschen über die Zeit dort entwickelt?

Meinen ersten Kontakt hatte ich in einer Suppenküche in Göttingen. Ich traf mich dort öfter mit dieser Person, bis sie mich mitnahm zu sich. Ich habe immer versucht in einem vertrauensvollen Verhältnis mit den Protagonist*innen zu arbeiten und meine Projektidee transparent zu machen. Irgendwann wurde ich im Haus „weiterempfohlen“. An Türen habe ich eigentlich nie geklopft.

Wie hat dein Einzug in das Iduna Zentrum deine Arbeit beeinflusst und gab es Situationen, in denen du deine Doppelrolle als Bewohner und Fotograf als problematisch empfunden hast?

Eigentlich nicht. Für die meisten meiner Protagonist*innen war ich der Fotograf, der nun mal irgendwann auch im Haus wohnte. Die meisten kannte ich schon bevor ich einzog. Für mich war es viel wichtiger das Leben dort aus einer anderen Perspektive beobachten zu können, es bis zu einem gewissen Grad auch selbst nachfühlen zu können.

War es schwer für dich, einen Schlussstrich am Ende der Arbeit zu ziehen und hast du noch Kontakt zu jemandem aus dem Zentrum?

Ein solches Projekt hat kein Ende, außer man setzt sich selbst einen Zeitpunkt. Für mich war es der Termin meines Auszugs aus dem Wohnkomplex. Ich hatte drei Monate zuvor den Mietvertrag gekündigt und damit war der Zeitpunkt fix. Mir war klar, dass ich nach dieser sehr intensiven Zeit nicht mehr an diesem Thema weiterarbeiten werde. Der Abschied von den Menschen, die ich dort kennen gelernt habe, ist mir schwergefallen. Mit einigen bin ich noch in Kontakt. Wir telefonieren oder tauschen uns über soziale Netzwerke aus. (Interview: Jan Kräutle)

During the project, photographer Ingmar Björn Nolting distributed notebooks to the residents, which they could use however they liked.

Found in Research

Ingmar Björn Nolting: Hinter Fassaden, mit einem Text von Belinda Grasnick
Emerge Magazin, 07.02.2020

Curated by Jan Kräutle

*1995 in Aalen, Germany
Ingmar Björn Nolting studied photography at Dortmund University of Applied Sciences and Arts. He currently lives in Leipzig and works as a freelance photographer. His long-term projects are devoted to documenting social, geographic and geopolitical isolation. In 2018, he won the Emerge Visual Journalism Grant for the project “Behind Façades”, which is being exhibited here. Along with four other photographers, Nolting founded the DOCKS Collective.

www.ingmarnolting.de
@ingmarbnolting

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