Following on from the EMOP Berlin 2025 leitmotif, what stands between us, the young scene was called upon to develop and submit works that deal with topics of social and socio-political relevance in the face of a present characterised by diverse conflicts. This generation of young artists is particularly affected by the upheavals and existential crises of our time. As curator, Marie-Luise Mayer was invited to design an exhibition with her own focus from the 36 submissions. The result is the project Meet Me Halfway.

The Potsdam University of Applied Sciences is represented with works by Saskia Darija Gettel, Marie Gutierrez Oliva, Julia Krasnoperova and Samira Rehmert from the Design department.

Saskia Darija Gettel is showing her work "The Poison Book". Saskia Gettel's grandfather independently ran a venomous snake farm in the GDR for decades. Two generations later, she uses research, archive material and her own photography for her artistic research into the relationship between the individual and a repressive society. The photo book is part of her bachelor's thesis and was realised under the supervision of Prof. Wiebke Loeper and Constanze Hein.

Marie Gutierrez Oliva's work "Love" is dedicated to the inescapable family care and the invisible sacrifices it entails. For ten years, Marie's mother, her own mother, who was confined to a wheelchair, cared for her every day. The hardest thing for both of them in this rhythm of life was not the physical burden, but the stagnation. It was only with distance that Marie Gutierrez Oliva recognised the unshakeable love in this devotion. Her work shows an authentic image of an often overlooked reality. The series was created in a photography course under the supervision of G?ran Gnaudschun.

In her work "Minus a Daughter", Julia Krasnoperova explores the emotional process of breaking off contact with a parent after years of tension and political conflict. She thematises the setting of boundaries and the stigma of openly addressing family estrangement. A small selection of family photographs preserves a glimpse of the past connection, while the remaining images express the chaos and confusion of separation. Through intimate images and reflective texts, the project explores grief, resilience and the search for self-determination beyond a broken relationship. The work was created in the course "The opposite of fear is courage" with Prof. Wiebke Loeper.

In addition to the works presented on the wall, the book "The Holy Land" by Samira Rehmert will also be shown. Her book was created in the "Working with Images" course with Clara Bahlsen. The year before, Samira spent a semester abroad at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem, where she took a course on political photography. She quickly realised that she was surrounded by a wide variety of people whose home is Jerusalem and that she herself knew nothing about this place. So she began to go for walks in a wide variety of neighbourhoods - a privilege in Jerusalem. The photo book "THE HOLY LAND" focuses on precisely this privilege and tells of observations, curiosity, naivety, borders, contrasts and encounters.

Further information: https://emop-berlin.eu/exhibition/meet-me-halfway/abdd24b4-b543-4789-89e2-18fc99c8b8cf/

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