Since 2005 Katja Stuke and Oliver Sieber have been traveling to Japan, working on topics from subculture to surveillance. Since 2011 they are developing an extensive body of work they call the »Japanese Lesson«. At the beginning it was a single one-channel video, dealing with the visual influence, research and overwealming impressions of the Japanese cities, life and culture. Since then their perspective became more elaborated and several new works have been created: photobooks, different photographic series, dealing with topics like protest and activism, activists and landscape — political landscape.

exhibited at:
2016 Filmwerkstatt Düsseldorf
2018/2019 Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg
2019 Kunsthalle Gießen: Sequence as a Dialogue,
2020/2021 Museum Schloss Morsbroich
2018 UNSEEN Fair, Coop Invit. Section

more»»

Katja Stuke & Oliver Sieber »Nishinari«
May 24, 2017; 2 – 7:30  pm
one-channel video, 281 photographs, 23:15 min
see video»»

One part of Nishinari ward is Kamagasaki, located near the south of  the Osaka loop line; it’s a so called „Yoseba,“ an area where unskilled workers live and work day in and day out. The three largest Yosebas are Kamagasaki, Kotobuki in Yokohama and Sanya in Tokyo.Other smaller Yosebas can be found   in many larger Japanese cities.
The first Yosebas arose in the 19th century: people who were incarcerated were arrested and lodged in Yosebas, then forced to work in land reclamation or dam construction.At the end of the 1950s, the Yosebas system was reactivated because it was hoped to meet the needs of rapid capitalist growth in Japan. At that time, as now, the task was to provide day to day access to cheap labor for the construction, shipbuilding and manufacturing industries.

Katja Stuke & Oliver Sieber »Ikuno«
May 27, 2017; 10:15 am – 5:15 om
one-channel video, 424 photographs, 34:45 min
see video»»

Ikuno-ku is one of 24 wards of Osaka, Japan. The Tsuruhashi area of Ikuno-ku is well known for the large number of Koreans, particularly Korean Japanese citizens (Zainichi Korean) living there, as well as for its large number of yakiniku (Korean-style barbecue) restaurants. Many families from Korea have lived in the Tsuruhashi district for three generations or more. The population and density of Ikuno-ku are the sixth largest in Osaka City, but are declining. The number of foreigner registrations is the largest in the city, and one out of four residents here is of foreign nationality. The proportion of senior citizens is also higher than the overall Osaka City average.

As aging of the population progresses in Ikuno-ku, diverse services and assistances are being provided for senior citizens. The municipal home nursing service center, Okachiyama, is among them. Ikuno-ku is thus evolving into a comfortable town for all its residents including senior citizens and handicapped residents, who will all be satisfied with their life here.

exhibited at:
2018/2019 Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg
2019 Kunsthalle Gießen: Sequence as a Dialogue
2018 UNSEEN Fair, Coop Invit. Section

Katja Stuke & Oliver Sieber »Sanya«
April  12, 2017, 3 – 6:30 pm
36 digital prints,  29 x 42 cm, framed (grid: 200 x 280 cm)

San’ya is an area in the Taitō district of Tokyo, located south of the Namidabashi intersection, around the Yoshino-dori. A neighborhood named „San’ya“ existed until 1966, but the area was renamed and split between several neighborhoods. It is a region with a distinct culture, an area of crowded, cheap rooming houses where day laborers live.San’ya dates to the Edo period. Lower caste workers, butchers, tanners, leatherworkers, and the like, were forced to live in this undesirable region by the predominantly Buddhist authorities. It has retained its association with both lower class workers and with craftsmen. Within the past few years gentrification has begun to encroach on the area. In recent years, some of the rooming houses have converted to provide cheap accommodation for foreign backpackers.

exhibited at:
2018/2019 Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe
2019 Kunsthalle Gießen: Sequence as a Dialogue,
2020/2021 Museum Schloss Morsbroich
2021 Museum Kunstpalast Düsseldorf

Katja Stuke & Oliver Sieber »Tokyo no Hate«
35 pigment prints, different sizes / framed, 2015
(grid ca.: 250 x 180 cm)

The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster was an energy accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Fukushima, initiated primarily by the tsunami following the Tohoku earthquake on 11 March 2011. Since then Katja Stuke and Oliver Sieber met activists in Japan, joined protest demonstrations, exchanged with artists and learned a lot abour places, spaces and history in Japan.
see the publication»»

Katja Stuke & Oliver Sieber, Colombes
work in progress – current state of this work:
73 photographs; unique artist book, Din A4, 152 pages, 2019
see more»»

The 1900 Summer Olympic Games were held in the French capital Paris as part of the World's Fair. The competitions were spread over five months and took place between May and October 1900. The 1924 Summer Olympics were held in Paris from 4 May to 27 July 1924. The Olympic Stadium in Colombes was once again the venue for the 1938 World Cup. World Cup in 1938. With the start of the Second World War, the sports venue also served as a for German and Austrian internees, who were distributed to other internment camps in France. in France.
In recent years, it has been used as a rugby stadium; during the Olympic Games, which will be 2024 in Paris, it will be used as a venue for the hockey competitions.

Katja Stuke & Oliver Sieber »Aubervilliers«
160 photographs, unique artist's book, 320 pages, 2019

The commune of Aubervilliers is a suburb in the north of the French capital Paris. It belongs to the Seine-Saint-Denis department in the Île-de-France region and has about 86,000 inhabitants. Aubervilliers is traditionally a stronghold of the political left.
Aubervilliers is considered one of the ZUS (Zones Urbaines Sensibles), an area with high levels of poverty, and a high proportion of young people, many of whom come from immigrant families.
Aubervilliers also plays a role in the planning and development of  Grand Paris,  is a project to reform the structure of the Paris conurbation, which, in addition to the city of Paris, extends over seven other départements and numerous municipalities.

Museum Morsbroich 2020/2021
Museum Folkwang, BYOB 2023

Katja Stuke & Oliver Sieber »Walk the Walk« 2019
one-channel video, 167 photographs, 16:9, Full HD, 14:05 min
see video»»

We are interested in the virtual or parallel proximity of places, places that are far away from each other, the simultaneity of event and memory. Since 2018 we have separated work and private life: we moved out of the studio with the 'private household' and thus now have a regular way 'to work'.
Following the instructions of the route from Düsseldorf, we leave our accommodation in a completely new district of Chongqing, and transfer the instructions from Düsseldorf to the city map of the Chinese twin city, without knowing anything about the destination on site. Due to different proportions, road layouts and construction sites, the route is not clearly recognizable for us in advance and we follow the route through residential areas, construction sites, across highways and past shopping malls and shopping streets.

exhibited at:
Taifun Project, Open Window 2020 [G]
Museum Schloss Morsbroich, From A to B [G], 2020/2021

Katja Stuke & Oliver Sieber
»The Headquarter« 2017/2021
Tokyo Imperial Hotel
33 Pigment Prints, 30 x 40 cm

The Imperial Hotel in Tokyo in the 1960s was a stunning structure. Designed by the legendary architect, Frank Lloyd Wright, the Imperial Hotel’s lava rock facing, the abundance greenery and the dominant reflection pool makes me think of Angkor Wat or the Taj Mahal on a more intimate scale. Known in Japan as the Teikoku Hotel,the Wright designed structure was built inthe early 1920’s, opening up on Sept.  1, 1923, the day of Japan’s most powerful earthquake ever, one that resulted in the flattening of Tokyo and over 140,000 deaths. Wright had already left Japan several months before, but was proud when told that the Imperial Hotel remained standing. […] In the years and months leading up to the Games 1964, the hotels tried hard to get the various committees and federations to provide more exact numbers of guests. […] By the late 1960s, the Wright-designed structure was falling into decay, part of the building sinking into its foundation. The number of rooms was woefully short of economic viability for a downtown Tokyo hotel as well. The hotel was closed at the end of 1967, and demolished to make way for a high-rise structure.

It was used by the IOC during the Olympic Games in 1964 and 2021. It will be totally reconstructed and reopened in 2032.

Katja Stuke & Oliver Sieber »Ichinomiya« 2017,
May 5, 2017; 12:15 – 15:30 pm
30 Pigment Prints, je 30,9 x 43,2 cm

The Tsurigasaki Beach in the town of Ichinomiya, Chiba Prefecture, has been selected as a site for the surfing event at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Surfing made its debut at the 2020 Games as an official sport in the Summer Olympics. Ichinomiya is located 233 miles south of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.

exhibited at:
Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg: Fotografie Neu Ordnen, Japanese Lesson, 2018/2019
Kunsthalle Gießen: Sequence as a Dialogue, 2019
UNSEEN Fair, Coop Invit. Section 2018

Katja Stuke & Oliver Sieber »Peripheren« 2022

Portfolio, 2023
120 pigment-prints
Edition of #6

Artist Book, 244 pages, 20 x 28 cm
with a text by Kerstin Meincke (dt./eng.)
supported by: Kunststiftung NRW
Böhm Kobayashi & Verlag Kettler

see the book»»

In their work, Katja Stuke and Oliver Sieber deal with questions about the structures of cities and the connection between urban and social boundaries. Their photographs show a particular interest in marginalized regions and neighborhoods or those that are stigmatized in the collective perception.  At the same time, their work is less committed to the individual image. Rather, Stuke and Sieber work in series and sequences; they layer, mix, and link material to create multi-layered associations.

Their latest work relates the French capital to the Ruhr region and its imagined center, the Zollverein coal mine, often referred to as the "Eiffel Tower of the Ruhr." Yet neither the Eiffel Tower nor the colliery are the focus of their photographs. Rather, Stuke and Sieber have have juxtaposed the photographs taken along the Périphérique in Paris with places that appear on the Périphérique in Paris, places that refer to the "imaginary périphérique" in the Ruhr region.

This interest in marginalized regions and neighborhoods—or areas that have been stigmatized in the collective perception—figures in many of Stuke and Sieber’s works, which track and amplify the narrative dimensions of these places through the practice of visual mapping.  […] This method of questioning, seeking orientation, drifting without any preconceived outcome in mind is a channeling of the concept of the  dérive, which goes back to the artist, author, and filmmaker Guy  Debord, one of the founding members of the Situationist International. In the mid-1950s, he outlined the “theory of drifting” (Théorie de la Dérive), opening up new ways of seeing urban spaces. On their perambulations, the artists, absorbed by this mindset, often discover unexpected overlaps and connections between places, actions, events, and actors that are geographically and temporally disparate, picking up their trails and weaving them together across national borders. (Kerstin Meincke in: Peripheren)

Katja Stuke and Oliver Sieber »La Ville Lumière«, 2021
Two-channel-video, Full HD, 12:49 min, 2021
with music by Volker Bertelmann

Katja Stuke and Oliver Sieber »La Ville Lumière«, 2021
published by GwinZegal & Böhm Kobayashi
20 x 28 cm, 224 pages incl.  112 colour plates
with a text by Florian Ebner

During a two-month residency at the Cité International des Arts in November and December 2018, the Gilets Jaunes protests began. Our walk took us along the Rue des Rivoli (ususally the Louvre (and hundreds of police) to Place de la Concorde. Again and again we had to change our route, passing the police barriers, being pepper-sprayed in another direction, crossing the empty Boulevard Haussmann, past a few small smoky barricades, to the Place de la République, where climate activists had gathered for a peaceful protest. During this "walk" we let ourselves drift, letting external influences determine our path; in between, over an espresso in a bistro, we were able to follow the reports on the events we had just experienced ourselves, to see our own experiences reproduced in the media reflections.

Oliver Sieber »Walk with Henguchi« Konohana 2014/2019
24 Family Mart prints,  framed, 80 x 100 cm

Henguchi is a Japanese artist and poet, who introduced us to Konohana, a local district in Osaka, quite central, near the harbor, surrounded by rivers and water.
Some years ago we very briefly met British sociologist Iza Kavedžija  on a street in Konohana  who did some research there for her paper  about artists in Osaka,  called
“I move my hand and then I see it“. Quote: When asked to reflect on their own creative practice,  they would frequently invoke images of movement. …they would emphasise the importance of moving one’s body – and they compare their own lives to a path, albeit one with a  far less visible endpoint“.

It takes time to experience a district, you can’t just  point out anything interesting on a map  and just talk a little bit about it. The time it takes to go from one place to another, the smell, the atmosphere, –sometimes even the boredom– let the experience stick in your memory, and makes it easier to understand.– It’s also very helpful  if you don’t speak the same language.

»We live along paths – we live in landscapes, we go for walks.  When we map this landscape,  when we look from above paths become routes  which only connect target points. But walking inside the landscape can change  an attitude towards the world
and can make a difference between inhabiting or occupying an area.« About Tim Ingold’s »Lines: A Brief History«.

Katja Stuke & Oliver Sieber
»Sequence as a Dialogue, Ruins of the Future« 2021
Zine #50, 28 pages, A4, Ed. of 100 copies
see more»»

»Sequence as a Dialogue« Stuke and Sieber work in series and sequences. They create layers and mix materials, they take pictures of computer screens and posters, they construct a whole set of images and constellations, depicting various motifs with different media and equipment. They expose the process of editing as part of their artistic practice.

Katja Stuke & Oliver Sieber »Chongqing Express« 2021
in collaboration with Emschergenossenschaft and Ruhr Museum Essen.

Since 2014, trains from Chongqing but also from other desitations in China (like Wuhan, Xi'an), are arrinving in Duisburg; by now almost 60 trains per week. Reason enough to work about the New Silk Road / Road and Belt Project, the connections between China and Europe, and how it effects the Ruhr Area and the people living there. We understand our work on the border and as a connection between document and artistic work. In our artistic, photographic work we react to social changes and look at them from our personal perspective, with associations and connections that arise and develop in the course of the work.

Trains from China also terminate in Mannheim or Rotterdam, and Alibaba (Chinese biggest online commerce company) opens a first hub, a warehouse and logistic center in Liège Belgium.

Exhibitions:
2022 Kunsthalle Mannheim, Biennale für aktuelle Fotografie
2022 Zollverein Essen, Beyond Emscher

see video of artist book»»

»Tokyo Happy« combines images of several areas in Tokyo like Miyashita Park, Ariake or the National Stadium, where changes due to the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 are very visible: Over the period of 3 years (in 2020 with the support of a ›remote photographer‹) changes are documented and juxtaposed with found and virtual images.

Katja Stuke and Oliver Sieber visited Miyashita Park, Ariake Island and Olympic Stadium in 2017 and 2019. These three spots are related to Tokyo 2020. In 2017 all three locations were: a closed park, a huge waste land on an artificial landfill island and a huge construction site. In 2019 construction developed.
here: Miyashita Park before its redevelopment, Miyashita Park was one of the few public green areas in Shibuya’s business ward. The origins of the park stretch back to the 1930s and, in 1964, the year of the first Tokyo Olympics, the Japanese government redesigned the space to include a parking garage. Miyashita Park used to be home to a large homeless population in Shibuya Ward before the current rebuidling on the occasion of Tokyo 2020.

Katja Stuke, Midosuji, Osaka 2019
one-channel video,  sound,  6:47 min

Midosuji boulevard – the primary main street in central Osaka – is an ultra high-class shopping street, housing luxury clothing flagship stores, several department stores and major hotels. In 2019 on »Midosuji« several racists ralleys took place, opposed by counter racists – and the police inbetween.

see the video»» (PW osaka2019)

Katja Stuke & Oliver Sieber
Le Monde de Demain
Work in Progress. 2023

Grand Paris is what the French government calls the big project in and around Paris. The city and its suburbs are to merge into a Grand Paris. The Péripherique should no longer a border, a wall between bourgeois Paris and the poor banlieues. Between St Ouen, St Denis and Aubervilliers, the so far very neglected north of the city is being upgraded. Office and residential complexes are being built, the areas around the construction sites are unrecognisable.

Each year since its launching in 2016, six to seven photographers were selected to be part of the national photographic commission, Regards du Grand Paris, awarded by the French Ministry of Culture to the Ateliers Médicis, in partnership with the Centre national des arts plastiques (National Center of plastic arts).

As part of Regards du Grand Paris»» Katja Stuke and Oliver Sieber explored the relationship between the ‚Banlieue‘ (suburbs) and the ‚Centre‘ (city center) of Paris, particularly in terms of the political and social landscape, urban transformation, and the visibility of various groups of people in this urban space. With a focus on »Paris 2024« and breakdancing, they conducted nine walks through the »Grand Paris« region, covering a total distance of 84.39 km, twice the distance of a regular marathon.

Katja Stuke & Oliver Sieber
»Sakae Ôsugi, Anarchiste Japonais«
work in progress.

Sakae Ōsugi (*17 Jan 1885 † 16 Sept 1923) was a Japanese anarchist; an important socialist, later anarcho-syndicalist activist, publicist and theoretician of the Taishō period. On 20 Nov 1922 he got an invitation to attend the 2nd International Anarchist Congress in Berlin in Feb 1923. After borrowing the necessary 1.000 Yen in travel expenses from the writer Arishima Takeo and others, he travelled to Shanghai on 13 Dec. where comrades helped him obtain a false Chinese passport on the names Chin Chen aka Tong Chin Tangle. He landed in Marseille on 13 Feb on a French ship. He did not get the necessary foreigner‘s identity card issued in Lyon. Nevertheless, he travelled to Paris. He was shocked by the living conditions of the French workers and the lack of hygiene. In april, he canceled his plans to travel to Berlin instead he stayed in Paris and gave a May Day speech in the north Parisian suburb of Saint-Denis. There he was arrested by civilian police who knew about his presence in Europe. He was sentenced to three weeks in prison and deportation for passport offences. On 2 June he was sent back to Japan where he later was murdered – together with his second wife feminist and anarchist Itō Noe and a nephew – in Tokyo on 16 Sept 1923 by military police.
The police used the chaotic situation during the great Kantō earthquake to cover up several murders of political prisoners. Sakaes murder is known as the Amakasu Incident.
In his book »My escapes from Japan« he mentiones a »workers’ hall« near the Basilica in Saint-Denis. Most likely he refers to the »Bourse du Travail« of Saint-Denis which was located in the Hotel de Ville at that time. In April 1892 a workers union was created for the first time in Saint-Denis initially in the premises of the Hotel de Ville opposite of the Basilica. In April 1895, several local trade unions formed a »Bourse du Travail« which was first located on rue Saulger, later on rue des Ursulines and rue Suger. The current »Bourse du Travail«  on Rue Génin was designed by architect Roland Castro. Since the 1980s the architect has been working  on the idea of a Grand Paris (he is at the origin of the »Banlieue 89« think tank with the urban architect Michel Cantal-Dupart).
In Feb 2023, almost 100 years after Sakae Ōsugi’s experiences in Saint-Denis, Katja Stuke and Oliver Sieber walked from Hotel de Ville past Passage Saulger, rue des Ursulines and rue Suger until they finally reached Rue Génin.

Katja Stuke & Oliver Sieber »Japanese Lesson, Mash-up«
one-channel video, 5:43 min

This »Japanese Lesson« is an associative mashup, developing since 2005. Resulted from a long-lasting research it contains images and drawings from mangas and animes, still images from japanese movies, historical and current press-photographs; photos, drawings and paintings by japanese artists, some of our own works and material we found in the web, magazines, LP-record-sleeves, catalogues, in the streets and subways of Tokyo and Osaka.

exhibited at:
Filmwerkstatt Düsseldorf, Japanese Lesson, 2016
Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg: Fotografie Neu Ordnen, Japanese Lesson, 2018/2019
Kunsthalle Gießen: Sequence as a Dialogue, 2019
Museum Schloss Morsbroich, From A to B [G], 2020/2021
UNSEEN Fair, Coop Invit. Section 2018

Ruinen der Zukunft / Ruins of the Future
work in progress

Starting from the plans of Expo 2025, which will take place on the landfill-island of Yumeshima (Dream Island) in Konohana, Osaka »Ruins of the Future« is an ongoing project, dealing with Future promises of Urban Developments between Japan, Paris and the Ruhr Area. In this project we have a special focus Olympic Games in Paris 2024 and Tokyo 2020 (2021).  Observing and documenting the transformations of  the landscape, the process of the construction-sites over 3 or 4 years, »Ruins of the Future« deals with the following questions: Can major events like the Olympic Games or EXPO be accelerators of such urban changes, how much do they contribute to further changing the understanding of private and public space? Do ideas of coming together, exchange, sporting competition still play a central role or are the stadiums, arenas and pavilions just some more ruins of the future?

Katja Stuke »Konohana Dream«
two-channel video, sound, 33:36 min
watch here»» (PW: KONOHANA2020)

Konohana is a district in Osaka and most likely also be described as ‚Deep Japan’. It’s located in the east of Osaka, quite central, near the harbor, surrounded by rivers and water. It feels comfortable there, characterized by old houses, old shops, small businesses  and industry, small bars and cafés for the local people. It is a local area,  the community consists of a lot of old people, workers, fishermen, and foreigners working at Universal City amusement park.
In Konohana Yumeshima (translated: Dream Island) the 2025 EXPO will take place. Currently it’s just wasteland, a landfill island, with a container terminal  and a 7-Eleven Convenient Store. Maybe since 10 or 12 years artists, musicians and young architects  move to Konohana, establish their studios there opened a hostel, share-houses and live-houses  small galleries, bakeries and more. Maybe you can call it  a very careful gentrification made from individual ideas and  with very personal energy.

In 2019 Katja Stuke and Oliver Sieber, with the helping support of Konohana based artist Henguchi invited some „local people“  to discuss EXPO: to talk about the memories of the older participants of EXPO 1970 (which was an important, influential event at that time) 
their fears, hopes, and expectations towards EXPO 2025 in Konohana. Their ideas  if and how their town would change through this event. Stuke/Sieber prepared 10 questions,  translated them into Japanese, and discussed for maybe an hour– conducted by Henguchi.
Following Joseph Beuyes’ ideas of a ‚social sculpture’ they created a situation, a place to discuss –  from where now  the conversation continues and new ideas  are developed in Konohana.

As one outcome from this evening Stuke/Sieber could create a sound piece, using the recorded discussions. As they cannot really understand Japanese, they cut the sound into snippets, re-composed them. So even people who speak Japanese, also cannot understand  the details of the conversation.
They juxtaposed the sound  to a two channel-video.
On the left, you see a video Katja Stuke took in 2019, driving with a bicycle through Konohana, passing most of the places,  they have a personal connection to; the different houses they lived in during the last years; places with a  personal connection. On the right you see a virtual tour through Konohana, following the bicycle tour on the left – recorded in Düsseldorf via Google Street View  in 2020 during the first Corona lockdown.

Katja Stuke & Oliver Sieber »Aulnay Sous Bois«
work in progress – current state of this work:
128 photographs, unique artist book, Din A4, 256 pages, 2019
see more»»

Aulnay Sous Bois is a commune in the Seine-Saint-Denis department in the Île-de-France region in the north-eastern suburbs of Paris, France. The north of Aulnay Sous Bois consists of large housing estates and industrial areas (like PSA Peugeot Citroën).
The PSA Aulnay Sous Bois Plant is a former car plant in France, producing approximately 135,700 cars in 2011. The last car came off the line in October 2013. Aulnay Sous Bois was also affected by the 2005 French riots, a three-week period of riots in the suburbs of Paris and other French cities in October and November 2005.

Katja Stuke & Oliver Sieber »Kotobuki Cho«
one chapter of: »Japanese Lesson«

Kotobuki is one of three traditional day-labourer districts in Japan, called doya-gai, where men have long lived in flophouse-style rooms (doya) and found work at nearby labour markets (yoseba). Doya-gai became infamous in largely crime-free and orderly Japan  and have always had a strong presence of yakuza. In 2014 officials counted 6,318 residents in 123 cheap lodgings, 68 percent of them aged over 60 and a majority on welfare.

Katja Stuke, Oliver Sieber & Takano Ruydai
»North of Mikawashima« 2019/2021
Photopaper 66/67, 32 pages

Mikawashima is located in the north east of Tokyo, one of several districs often described as »Deep Japan«, an area left behind by development and so the appearance and way of life of the community continues as it was a long time ago. »North of Mikawashima« is the title of a collaborative work between Katja Stuke, Oliver Sieber and Ruydai Takano.

Katja Stuke & Oliver Sieber »New World« 2019
2 x 59 photographs, clockwise/counterclockwise

Shinsekai (which translates „New World") is located in Osaka. An area, where a national industrial show – a kind of „local EXPO“ – took place in 1912
with the inevitable Tsutenkaku Tower  as the main structure.  It became an amusement so called „luna“ park and is  now a poor neighborhood  with still some amusement shops and restaurants. And with homeless people and day labourer living there just opposite of Kamagazaki/Nishinari.
Shinsekai has a negative image and  commonly held reputation  as Osaka's most dangerous area.
Stuke & Sieber walked on the district border of Shinsekai, one clockwise, the other counterclickwise, always photographing in the direction of the central tower.

Katja Stuke & Oliver Sieber »Norio Imai's Walk« 2019
96 photographs and one portrait

In 1970 Norio Imai and the artist-collective Gutai Group participated in EXPO 70 in Osaka. After meeting him in 2019 Stuke and Sieber walked though  Sumiyoshi, Osaka which is a very local  un-special disctrict following a walk  by Norio Imai‘s, which he made 1973.

Katja Stuke & Oliver Sieber
The Indian Defense 2021
One-channel Video, 5:23 min
Music by Axel Ganz

see video»»

The harbour of Chennai, a metropolis in the South East of India, is an important hub to the Asia-Pacific area, and play an important role in the global trade network. »The Indian Defense« juxtaposes images from the Northern part of Chennai and found material can also be read as a critical approach to photographic images, their relations to the global economy and the lack of own ›real photography.‹

We'd love to thank: Yogesh Sankar and Sharan Ragesh for taking photographs at selected junctions in Chennai. Thirupurasundari Sevvel and Namveedu Namoor Namkadhai for interesting conversations and helpful insights. Sristi Prabhakar for taking additional photos on two more junctions. Also Vivek Manek for some insights into Indian music and film. The Chennai Biennale and especially Kerstin Meincke, Varun Gupta and Shuchi Kapoor. Thanks to all known and unknown photographers, newspapers, writers, image-banks, websites, who's images we found to help us get an impression of Chennai and which became part of this mash-up. Thanks to the directors and directors of photography of the following inspirational movies: Vada Chennai, Madras, Jai Bhim, Bhooloham, Chennai Express and many more. Thank you Axel Ganz for the music.