In the exhibition "Unfolding Cities – The Photobook as Archive" AFF Galerie brings together works by two Swiss artists – Susanne Hefti and Damjan Kokalevski – with Dutch artist Stephan Keppel in Berlin. While Susanne Hefti and Damjan Kokalevski’s joint project “Skopje Walkie Talkie” (Spector Books, 2019) focuses on the shifts and changes of the North Macedonian city Skopje with a research based approach, Stephan Keppel casts his inquisitive gaze on the hidden narratives of Amsterdam in “Soft Copy Hard Copy” (Fw:Books, 2021).

The three represented positions are inherently connected by their thorough engagement with the living spaces and architectures of our cities. These interactions were translated into publications that examine the creative freedom and limits of this medium in an innovative way. Through these projects, as well as through the three personalities, the value of layered methodologies is revealed. Artistic expression can be experienced physically in books, with printed matter pointing us back to something lasting in an increasingly digital world. However, the manner by which the pages of books are filled follows a different process than the construction of a place.

The three artists will utilize their trialogue exhibition to open up an exchange between the two cities in their books through a structure in the gallery space developed in collaboration with the curatorial team. The archive and source materials of the books are translated into a new spatial order, where the disparate elements of both projects fuse into “Unfolding Cities” on both the inside and the outside of the gallery.

Curatorial Team of AFF Galerie: Anne Erhard und Lukas Heibges

The exhibition is supported by the Senatsverwaltung für Kultur und Europa Berlin, the Kulturstiftung des Kantons Thurgau and Pro Helvetia Swiss Arts Council.