STUDIO: Tino Zimmermann

In his works, Tino Zimmermann (*1990 Templin) deals with political and social issues that are often based on his personal experiences. In his long-term photo project Developments (2011-2020), he comes to terms with the difficulties he had growing up and living as a creatively inclined person during the post-reunification period in Brandenburg, Germany. He engages with themes such as lack of perspective, poor social integration and the resulting mental illnesses and addictions. When he discharged himself from a psychiatric clinic during a drug-induced psychosis and decided to change his life and stay abstinent, he discovered photography as an occupation. He turned the photos telling of this time into an approximately 500-page artist’s book. With his story, Zimmermann seeks to draw attention to the difficulties that many young people faced and continue to face in structurally weak regions with a GDR past. At the same time, he would like to contribute to reducing the stigma that is often attached to mental illnesses.

The work presented in the STUDIO consists of two parts: the artist’s book entitled Developments, which will also be available as an edition for the first time in the frame of the show, and a spatial installation alluding to the state of schizophrenia. For this, the artist rearranged photographs of his room at the time: The photos of the walls and the floor are divided into individual fragments and arranged like a collage in such a way that the original layout of the room can no longer be reconstructed. The information of reality cannot be put together to form a meaningful picture anymore.
 

Curator: Johan Holten
Curatorial assistance: Dorotea Lorenz