OSTGEBIETE / ZIEMIE ZACHODNIE. German-Polish Perspectives

Marking the 35th anniversary of the German-Polish Treaty on Good Neighbourship, the special exhibition “Ostgebiete / Ziemie Zachodnie” brings together renowned photographers from both countries in a visual dialogue on memory, identity, and transformation.

At its core are German and Polish perspectives on a shared landscape of memory in Poland. For many Germans, the former eastern territories of the German Reich—Ostgebiete—are associated with flight and expulsion, with the loss of homeland, and with the enduring presence of these profound experiences in countless family histories. They form part of a collective memory that continues to shape identities in Germany to this day. From a Polish perspective, the Ziemie Zachodnie—the western territories after 1945—carry a different meaning: many of those who settled there had themselves been displaced from the East and bore the experience of German occupation. It was about arriving in an unfamiliar place, beginning anew under difficult circumstances, and inhabiting a region shaped by Germans that only gradually became home. These perspectives are fundamentally different, yet inseparably intertwined.

The artistic works of ten photographers from both countries reveal how traces of a process that remains visible and tangible to this day—marked by appropriation and farewell—have been inscribed into landscapes, architecture, and family narratives on both sides of the Oder River.

Featuring works by: Karolina Gembara, Annette Hauschild, Thomas Meyer, Katarzyna Mirczak, Filip Piotrowicz, Natalia Poniatowska, Linn Schröder, Ina Schoenenburg, Wojtek Sienkiewicz, Heinrich Völkel

Exhibition dates: 29 May 2026 – 17 January 2027

Artistic curator: Karolina Gembara

Project leads: Barbara Kurowska, Arvid Peschel

Design: Naroska Design

In cooperation with: OSTKREUZ – Agentur der Fotografen