Karin Wach : Transformation 2.0 – Fotografische Objekte

Galerie Altes Haus der Burg Neustadt-Glewe, Germany
June – August 2022

My solo exhibition Transformation 2.0 – Fotografische Objekte was to have opened in the Galerie Altes Haus der Burg Neustadt-Glewe, the oldest military castle in Mecklenburg, Germany in May 2020. Because of corona virus the exhibition was postponed. The good news is that it was rescheduled and runs until 21 August 2022. The private view/Vernissage, a civic event, was opened by the Bürgermeisterin (Mayoress) Frau Doreen Radelow on June 12.

Transformation 2.0 – Fotografische Objekte includes work which was not in the original exhibition Transformation. This body of work on the last industrial spice-grinding mill, Butlers Wharf, was first exhibited in London (Tom Blau Gallery) in 1994, Bristol (Watershed) in 1995 and Hamburg, 2019.

The title ‘Transformation’ refers to the way I work with the single unedited photograph as my medium. From the multiples of one, rarely two photos I create an abstract image. These constructed images, mounted on board and framed under glass, explore through their formal layout and content the complexity of the industrial processes and the transformation of a working industrial mill into an enchanting Aladdin’s cave at the point of its closure. Plant/machinery/cogwheel and plant/spice/flower merge into one organic whole.

In 2019 while invigilating my solo show in Hamburg I suddenly realized that my work is really about two mills: about the London Mill which I did not want to be demolished and a mill that stood further up the road from my grandparents’ age-old timber-framed house in Parchim, a small town in Mecklenburg. I remembered the name of the street: Mühlenstraße (Mill Street). I was shocked. How could I have forgotten what was so dear to me but lost when the Wall (Iron Curtain) divided Germany and visits became difficult?

Image Gallery