»Cartographie dynamique« is a virtual network connecting cities in Japan, Germany, France, China or India with the distinctive photographic works created in each location. Thematic filters are added into the mix, among them Protest, Anarchism, Olympia, Expo, Love Parade, Z.U.S.(Zones urbaines sensibles), and Péripherique. These specify some of the unique features of these cities as well as comparable structural elements that they share, which act, for the most part, as catalysts for revolutionary urbanistic developments. This network originated fifteen years ago, with »Japanese Lesson« (2005), a body of work drawn from a wide range of private and appropriated image sources that has been continually expanding ever since. Beginning as an exuberant visual grammar consisting of shots of the city, portraits, and manga, steeped in the melancholy of the already antiquated hyper-modernity of Japanese “electric towns,” it afforded a more acute view of Europe’s urban structures and evolved via photographic peregrinations through the city into applied psychogeography.
The organization of the »Cartographie dynamique«as a network gives the desultoriness of Sieber & Stuke’s photographic dérives new possibilities of comparison and grants their repeating structures a logical inevitability. The cartography even generates ideas for new ways of mapping urban spaces, as is evident in Sieber & Stuke’s Walk the Walk, which trans-poses the local route from their flat in Düsseldorf to their studio, mapping it street by street onto a new neighborhood in the twinned Chinese city of Chongqing.
Even if today, in a globalized and automated world, the causes of social disruption can be attributed more and more to the invisible mechanisms of economic and political processes, they find visible expression in the physical world of our cities. (Florian Ebner, for »Dec 8 2018, La Ville Lumière«, GwinZegal / Böhm Kobayashi 2021)
Cartographie Dynamique« contains of several series and works of different volume. Some chapters excist as books, artist books in a small edition or unique maquettes. Several works appear as wall-pieces, grids of images, some are extensive installations of photographs and others exist as video-installations. And some are still „work in progess“.
Different chapters of Cartographie Dynamique have been exhibited/published:
2026 »Grand Snail Tour« Urbane Künste Ruhr
2026 »Le Monde de Demain« Take a Bow Düsseldorf
2025 »Towards the City« DFI e.V. Düsseldorf
2024 »Ruinen der Zukunft« Maison Heinrich Heine Paris
2024 »La Ville Invisible« Böhm Kobayashi
2024 »Sakae Osugi« Böhm Kobayashi / Nouveau Palais
2023 »Le Monde de Demain. A Prologue« Böhm Kobayashi
2022 »Chongqing Express« Zollverein / Ruhrmuseum Essen
2022 »Chongqing Express« Kunsthalle Mannheim
2022 »Peripheren, Verlag Kettler
2022 »Peripheren« Fotofabbrica Prize/Festival Diecixdieci
2021 »Sequence as a Dialogue, Ruins of the Future« Zine
2021 »Indian Defense« Cennail Photo Biennale
2021 »La Ville Lumière« FFT Düsseldorf
2021 »North of Mikawashima« Photopaper 66/67
2021 »Paris Dec 8, 2018, La Ville Lumière« Gwin Zegal
2020/21 »Sanya« and »Walk the Walk« Museum Morsbroich
2020 »Shin Sekai, Neue Welt« Zine Böhm Kobayashi
2019 »Japanese Lesson« Kunsthalle Gießen
2019 »Fotografie neu ordnen« MKG Hamburg
Katja Stuke and Oliver Sieber
Katja Stuke and Oliver Sieber intertwine photography, publication, video, and curatorial practice in their work. Their often long-term artistic research examines various image cultures and the relationships between photographic images and societal questions. Since 1998, they have been creating artist publications (as Böhm Kobayashi), and since 2010, they have been realizing the curatorial project ANT!FOTO. They live and work in Düsseldorf. Since 2005, they have regularly worked abroad, often in Osaka, Tokyo, and Paris, as well as in Chicago, Chongqing, Rotterdam, Sarajevo, and Toronto.
In 2024, they were awarded the MO_Kunstpreis by the Museum Ostwall in Dortmund, and in 2023, they were laureate of „Regards du Grand Paris“. Oliver Sieber’s book »Imaginary Club« was awarded »Photobook of the Year« in 2014 by Paris Photo and Aperture Foundation New York.
Most recently, their work „Le Monde de Demain“ was exhibited at the DFI e.V. project office in Düsseldorf.
In 2026, their project „Performance für ein Bild“ will be supported by the Kunststiftung NRW, and the Stadtmuseum Düsseldorf will present „Das Osaka Kontinuum“, an overview of their work in and about Japan since 2006. Most recently, their work „Le Monde de Demain“ was exhibited at the DFI e.V. project office in Düsseldorf. In 2026, their project „Performance für ein Bild“ will be supported by the Kunststiftung NRW, and the Stadtmuseum Düsseldorf will present „Das Osaka Kontinuum“, an overview of their work in and about Japan since 2006.
Works by Katja Stuke and/or Oliver Sieber are held in public and private collections, including the CNAP (Centre National des Arts Plastiques, Paris), the photographic collection of the V&A London, the SK-Stiftung Kultur Köln, the Folkwang Museum Essen, the Kunsthaus NRW Kornelimünster, the Kunstpalast Düsseldorf, the Stadtmuseum Düsseldorf, the MoCP Chicago, the Ruhrmuseum Essen, the Sprengel Museum Hannover, the Fotomuseum Winterthur, and others.