Since 2014, photographer Nora Klein has been living in her native borough of Thuringia again. Before her return she enjoyed a time of discovery: one year in New Zealand, half a year in Southeast Asia, four months in Heilbronn, Germany, two years in Stuttgart, four years in Hannover, half a year in Frankfurt am Main and another year in Denmark’s Aarhus.
The world is wide open to her generation: living in London, studying in Hamburg, working in Barcelona. But Klein chose differently and found her way back to her hometown Erfurt. Her return made the concept of home a particularly interesting topic to consider.
Klein’s color photographs capture places in Thuringia/Germany. As such, she has captured places and details that remind her of her childhood. She has placed them in contrast to found photographs. Her grandfather, Hans-Joachim Klein, used to photograph intensively. For her project Zurück, she decided to select pictures from his photographic archive. Klein decided to develop photo film negatives that had been locked up inside wooden boxes for decades. The black and white photographs were captured by her grandfather in the 1950s. He took photos in his spare time. The images show familiar situations: family outings, celebrations and portraits. And they too tell of home. This project seeks to uncover how ‘home’ is experienced by a generation that is flexible and mobile.