Besichtigt (2024)
I undertook this project under the auspices of the Vonovia Award Masterclass of 2024. I’d like to thank Vonovia for the opportunity and their willingness to support such critical subject matter.
I’d also like to thank the Masterclass’ mentors; Martin Brockhoff, Peter Bialobrzeski, Anna Gripp, Nina Röder, Linn Schröder and Ingo Taubhorn.
With “Besichtigt” I won the 2024 Vonovia Award in the “New Talents” award.
Besichtigt (Viewed) documents the mundane yet surreal experience of apartment hunting in Berlin. Over the course of several months, I applied to hundreds of apartments advertised online and attended numerous viewings. My camera was always with me.
Apartment viewings are a pivotal moment in the lives of many Berliners - a moment marked by hope and frustration, a sense of community and competition in equal measure. This moment encapsulates not only the reality of Berlin's tight housing market, but also the deeply human experience of searching for a home in a city plagued by a housing shortage.
The resulting series documents the spaces and people I encountered during these viewings. The faces and postures of my fellow searchers reflect the tensions that characterize this process. The subliminal nervousness of twenty people wandering through a two-bedroom apartment, the palpable competition as prospective tenants' eyes meet; the quiet desperation manifested in hastily filled out application forms.
This work aims to make the search for an apartment in Berlin visible and tangible - an experience that many people share, but which is rarely addressed artistically.