G20

Was passiert wenn sich die Politiker der 19 selbsternannten wichtigsten Industrie- und Schwellenländer des Planeten in Hamburg treffen, um den Kapitalismus zu optimieren?

Kollektiv25 on Tour:-)

Julius Schrank macht Buch für National Geographic

Julius ist aus New York zurück. Drei Wochen hat er dort für das neue National Geographic Buch »LINIE 7 – DIE KULTSTRECKE DURCH NEW YORK CITY« gearbeitet.

In dem Buch wird es neben mehr als 200 Fotografien von Julius, Texte von Bruce Northam, der unter anderem Reisereportagen für »New York Times« und »Huffington Post« schreibt, zu lesen geben.

LINIE 7 – DIE KULTSTRECKE DURCH NEW YORK CITY

Das Buch wird im Oktober erscheinen.
ISBN-13: 978-3-86690-630-3

NPD dominiert Pegida Ableger in Schwerin

Sorry this article is only available in german…

»Je suis Charlie« stand nicht auf ihren Schildern. Die etwa 400 MVgida-Teilnehmer, die sich am Montagabend an der Schweriner Siegessäule versammelten, solidarisierten sich keinesfalls mit den Pariser Terroropfern und dem damit verbundenen Angriff auf die Pressefreiheit: »Lügenpresse – auf die Fresse« skandierten sie stattdessen lauthals. Mit Strahlern blendeten sie Kameras, Journalisten wurde sich in den Weg gestellt, auch schon mal kräftig geschubst. Die Redner bei den Zwischenkundgebungen wurden abgeschirmt, so dass sie kaum fotografiert werden konnten. Die Stimmung war aggressiv.

Ganz offensichtlich wurde die Veranstaltung von NPD und freien Kräften dominiert. Neben der fast kompletten NPD Landtagsfraktion und deren Anhängern waren viele Kammeradschaftler, Dynamo Hooligans und rechtsextreme Rocker gekommen. Nur einige wenige ältere Herren und ein paar Familien gesellten sich zu den MVgida-Anhängern. Nur wenige Polizisten, teilweise waren es gerade mal etwas über ein Dutzend, schützten die Medienvertreter, deren Arbeit unter diesen Bedingungen schwierig wurden. Außer dem NDR und Vertretern der Lokalzeitungen folgten nur Fachjournalisten und wenige Beobachter dem gruseligen Aufzug. Später räumte die Einsatzleitung gegenüber einem Journalisten ein, dass es tatsächlich zeitweilig zu wenig Beamte gewesen seien.

MVGIDA 3

MVGIDA 4

New home for Iveta Jaslová

Four month ago we visited the family of Iveta Jaslová in Usti Nad Labem in the Czech Republic. They were forced to leave the building they had lived in. The owner evicted the people – most of them Roma – by cutting off the water and electricity supply. Luckily the lawyer of Iveta found a new flat for the family. Now she lives in a better neighborhood in which not only Roma but also Czech and Vietnamese people are living. She pays much less rent then before and the apartment is in a way better condition.

JasloviUstiNadLabem

Friday-Project: No place for Roma

Iveta Jaslová stands with her back against the wall in her flat in Czech Ústí nad Labem. In a few hours she has to leave the building. ”I am scared of losing my children. I don’t know what to do” says the 45 year old Roma. The police wants to evict her and her four daughters and 13 grandchildren from her flat.
The resitential manager hired by the company Czech Propert Investments charget too much rent for the appartments. Iveta and her family had to pay twice as much as Czech citizens are paying for flats in a way better condidition. Now the company has to decorate the building. They decided to throw the residents out of the building instead. ”We don’t want such people here” says the speaker of the company Michaela Winklerova.
The landlords don’t want Romas in their buildings. The prejudices – they are dirty; they would steal and destroy the facilities – are wide spread. Social flats are rare. The few landlords in the north of the Czech Republic who offer flats for Roma take advantage of their sorrow. They charge high rents for flats in an unacceptable condition.
Eventually the police decides not to evict the building. Czech Property Investments cuts off the water and electricity supply. Many families already left the building. Iveta and their children are going to stay one more night in their appartment. Where they will stay tomorrow is yet uncertain.

Text: Timo Robben/ Sebastian Heidelberger
Foto: Gustav Pursche, Florian Manz

Friday-Project: The deal in misery

The deal in misery

Iveta Jaslová stands with her back against the wall in her flat in Czech Ústí nad Labem. In a few hours she has to leave the building. “I am scared of losing my children. I don’t know what to do“ says the 45 year old Roma. The police wants to evict her and her four daughters and 13 grandchildren from her flat.
The resitential manager hired by the company Czech Propert Investments charget too much rent for the appartments. Iveta and her family had to pay twice as much as Czech citizens are paying for flats in a way better condidition. Now the company has to decorate the building. They decided to throw the residents out of the building instead. “We don’t want such people here“ says the speaker of the company Michaela Winklerova.
The landlords don’t want Romas in their buildings. The prejudices – they are dirty; they would steal and destroy the facilities – are wide spread. Social flats are rare. The few landlords in the north of the Czech Republic who offer flats for Roma take advantage of their sorrow. They charge high rents for flats in an unacceptable condition.
Eventually the police decides not to evict the building. Czech Property Investments cuts off the water and electricity supply. Many families already left the building. Iveta and their children are going to stay one more night in their appartment. Where they will stay tomorrow is yet uncertain.

Text: Timo Robben/ Sebastian Heidelberger








Friday-Project: Bus stops

I have been taking pictures of bus stops all over Germany for the last few years.
Unfortunately all the old bus stops are gradually being replaced by new ones,
that are made out of glass and metal and look all the same. What a shame…

Here is a small edit of my pictures.

Friday-Project: Amsterdam Dakar Challenge

Together with Julius, I’m doing a rally from Amsterdam to Dakar at the moment. After Dakar we will head on to Gambia where our car will be auctioned. The winst will be donated to a humanitarian Organasation in Gambia. At the moment we are in eastern Marocco at the edge to the Sahara. We have constant problems with our car, but so far we were always able to fix the problem. We hope to reach Banjul, the Gambian capital, by the 26th of november. After that the Friday-project will continue as usual.

Friday-Portrait: KITCHEN

It’s friday again. And Friday is portrait day on our blog. KITCHEN is on this week.
Every Friday each of us is going to upload one portrait to a given theme. On facebook you are now able to vote for the next weeks theme. You name what you wish to see – we go out and get it.

Here is last weeks theme: KITCHEN

Michael Frank

Slow Food chef Michel Frank with a fish in a hand in his restaurant.

Florian Manz

Florian Manz

Bounmy

This is twelve year old Bounmy in her kitchen preparing breakfast. I photographed her, in her village a few hours north of Vientiane, for GEOlino magazine a little while ago.

Lucas Wahl

Story published in »chrismon plus«

In the current issue of „chrismon plus“ magazine you can see a story about a music school in „Karosta“ a former soviet war harbor. Written by Catherine Lobenstein and photographed by Florian. Take a look!

Three Guys, One Truck And A Long Way To Go….

Three of us (Florian, Julius and Lucas) teamed up in Laos to work on a project together. Julius who is currently traveling around SEA brought up with his Landrover that he shipped into Singapore a few month ago. We have just been on a research trip to northern Laos. The trip included: A lot of time in the car, interesting roads, broken shock absorbers, beautiful landscapes, unbelievable amounts of sticky rice and the same funky green vegetable everyday. It also means drinking a lot of LaoLao (rice whiskey) with village elders and others; the rule here is to drink doubles, double rounds of doubles and triple rounds of doubles… after that it is hard to keep counting. We watched a local Akha tribe marriage, saw pigs getting slaughtered, been drinking and eating at a funeral, took icy showers, met unbelievably welcoming and generous people, met very desperate and helpless people, met chinese people spitting all over the place, met people wondering why we didn’t have at least two wifes, met people from at least 5 different tribes, met shamans, were surrounded by good and evil spirits BUT: We did manage not to eat bamboo rats and their babies. We are now in Vientiane waiting to interview some more people and working on our material. Lucas is off to China next week while Julius and Florian head on to Thailand.

The Beatsteaks

For the german daily »Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung« (FAZ) i spent one day with the german rock band »The Beatsteaks«. I was just heading to another job as the editor called me saying it was cancelled and i should portray the Beatsteaks instead. I had seen the band performing at the Hurricane festival a couple of years ago but i could neither remember how many of them stood on stage nor in which language they sang.

I thought of crazy, wild rock n‘ roll life. I pictured myself right in it.

The Beatsteaks didn’t fit in that cliche. Instead of Jack Daniels, loud music and hot groupies i found very clean tour buses, friends of the band members cooking delicious food and no liquor. The writer and i did an interview with Torsten Scholz, the bands bass player, a couple of hours before the gig. He was a very relaxed and sympathetic guy from berlin with some pretty colorful tattoos on his arms. After that the writer left and i stayed with the band until after the show. The only thing that fit into the rockstar life i expected was their manager taking care that the journalists wouldn’t harass the band members too much.
It has been a very interesting day.

It felt a bit like being in a flying military museum

I did it for Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
The Airborne Early Warning and Control System (AWACS) under NATO command is supplying aerial surveillance to NATO Headquarters. It has a base at Geilenkirchen/North Rhine-Westphalia.

That’s what it said in my assignement. I was told to be at the base at 7 a.m. to accompany one of their surveillance flights. That’s how I ended up flying to sicily and return without even having touched the ground.

The planes they are using remain from the time when germans still believed in the »evil-russian«. They are also used for major events such as World Cups. The engines on the planes are not being used in civilian air transportation because they’re too noisy and burn too much kerosene.

It felt a bit like being in a flying military museum. The technology is able to spot 400 planes in a circumcircle of 350 km. Regardless of the weather and the nature of the ground, because the high flying ferret aircrafts can look behind mountains which radar devices on the ground can not.

AWACS is an early warning system but it can also be used for purposes of attack. Such a machine can guide pursuit planes and missiles and spot defense installations from a save distance. One plane costs about 110 million euros, at Geilenkirchen there are based 16 of them.

Florian in Frankfurt

I’ve started my internship at Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) one of the biggest daily newspapers in Germany. Till march of 2011 I’ll be working for them.
My first thrilling publication was a computerized trashcan :-).

TV story on german channel NDR

It’s been a little while since the german channel NDR did a story on me and my story »The last remaining farmer of Hanover«. It is still available here (sorry, the link is not available anymore). The good thing is that you get to see a little bit of Hermann Völxen in action.