Staatsgrenze 1981-1983

Between 1981 and 1983, the Japanese photographer Seiichi Furuya, based in Graz, took photographs at the Austrian border towards the former Eastern block nations. In contrast to the media attention devoted to the inner German border and the division of Berlin, Furuya was searching for images in the inconspicuous and at times even idyllic border territories to Hungary, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia. His associations of places and stories form a valuable historical document, shaped by the interplay between the private and the political, between personal view and documentary distance. On occasion of his solo show at the Heidelberger Kunstverein in 2014 this work will be published — 30 years after its creation — in the form of a book.