CATHARINA TEWS – BELA WODA

#REVERSIBILITY – GALERIE ALTES RATHAUS

Catharina Tews, from the series Bela Woda, 2019–ongoing © Catharina Tews

Bela Woda is a synonym. Translated directly from Sorbian it means "white water". The white water of Upper Lusatia has become shallow and muddy. Pumps from open-pit lignite mining are drying out the landscape. When the excavator comes, villages are erased. The Sorbs are fighting for their heritage and the dredger driver for his identity. All of this is hidden behind dense pine forests.

The neighboring city of Weißwasser can neither demolish nor rebuild the ruins of its GDR past in the center. Today, the elderly are dominating the image of the city. The young don't know what to do with themselves. The exodus of the past created the wastelands of today. And the end of the glass industry will soon be followed by the end of coal. Bela Woda shows a region struggling to breathe in ongoing times of upheaval.

Catharina Tews was born in 1986 in Greifswald at the Baltic Sea. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism and communication studies at the Freie Universität Berlin. In 2021 she finished her education at the Ostkreuzschule für Fotografie. She lives and works as a freelance photographer in Berlin. She is committed to themes of social justice and structural change in Germany and the visual storytelling. Her work has been exhibited and awarded several times. She is one of the nominees of the ProfiFoto New Talent Awards 19/1 and one of the "Photo as a Weapon" award winners of the Willi Münzenberg Forum. Her work was most recently published in Further 3 and New York Edited 2022.

catharinatews.com
@catharinatews

back

error: Content is protected !!