Am Weg
Hans-Christian Schink

Opening with the artist on Saturday, March 7, 2026 at 7 p.m.

Hans-Christian Schink (born 1961 in Erfurt) traveled the world as a photographer for over 20 years. More recently, however, he has dedicated his artistic work to the region of his immediate surroundings in the far northeast of Germany. This sparsely populated area, shaped by the last Ice Age, is primarily characterized by industrialized agriculture and increasingly by the effects of the energy transition. Between 2012 and 2025, he created the series "Hinterland," "Underwater," and "On the Way." From a visual perspective, these projects represent a multifaceted, contemporary engagement with the influential tradition of European and North American landscape painting—especially Romanticism.

At the same time, the work stands at the intersection of current societal debates about the transformation of the landscape in the wake of climate and structural change, the associated loss of biodiversity, and the impact of these processes on people's experience of nature. In Schink's latest work, "Am Weg" (On the Way), the intensive photographic exploration of the landscape is complemented by a natural history interest in the flora and fauna, as well as an examination of the landscape's history (both geological and related to human land use). Focusing on the area along a 3-kilometer-long field path leading from the artist's house to the nearby lake, he was guided by two fundamental questions: What defines this landscape, and how can its character be captured photographically, but also through other forms of expression?