Change is not always a fast process. Stating what is an obvious observation, ruminating over the nature of change or our perception of change in local geography is pertinent. I think we like to denote the object status of “change” as being implicit, noticeable, and understood as event-driven, clear, and not necessarily attached to the slow process of history. When I suggest history, I think not of the event of history but how it is perceived in the physically built environment. History is often present and slowly mutating in the architecture of our built environment. The facades and their historical markers indicate the glacial historical movements. We like things easy. This is why history is often misunderstood. We search for meaning, narrative, categorization, and a way to relate the past to something defined. Frequently, this is where the wrong of its potential begins. In the built environment, depending on how one views the object of history, one can argue that we do not observe history at all but that it observes us.
In larger cities, it is tough to itemize these changes over time as things work at a certain speed, which disallows space for more prolonged observation. You also have a broader territory to observe, so the minutiae of observation are often compacted by distraction and flow. Yet, observing their changes is more possible in smaller towns, usually towns with former glory. Amongst all the possibilities for these cities to morph and change over time is the rush to utilize their structure as new economic conduits. Slowly, under the duress of neoliberal economies, big brands move in and take over sustenance architecture grocery stores, gas stations, and restaurants. They upgrade more often and are less resistant to long-term architectural proposals. The skeletal structures remain, if devoid of war, but their utility is frequently challenged by commercialization and retro-fitting consumer desire. This is progress, we are told. And it is selective.
Máj/My 2018 (Spector Books) dealt with this concept of retro-usage, re-formatting a Czech legacy grocery store with a Tesco beginning in 1996, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Instead of calling it Tesco, they named it My. Máj, the fifth month of the year, is in phonetic proximity to the English word My. However, with its specific usage in English, the word is a consumer fit that suggests several other lingual tendencies from the 90s and 200s, such as 4u, your, etc. It is a ploy that suggests relatability and the customer being first instead of the corporation. However, with the romantic usage of My and it’s precedent with the unintended phonetic usage of My in Czech, the pronunciation signals “We,” not Máj, the month. This promulgates an interesting parallel to former socialist tendencies. The My usage to We usage signals the shift from individual corporate colloquialisms to socialist ones. Not only was it a type of perfect failure, but the integrity of the architecture retained its usage in a strange reappearance of socialist tendencies, shrouded in bland consumer language.
Flächenland (2020-2022), published by Spector Books in December 2023, is an extension of Kiwitt’s search for architecture with precedent, those structures and facades that speak slowly to the echoes of history. It is almost typologically rendered in a thick volume of often brooding images reminiscent of Laurenz Berges’ undervalued work. The work is paced to suggest the examination and cataloging of Saxony-Anhalt, a former East German state, reunified with West Germany in 1990. Kiwitt traipsing the culturally rich state of Germany does not necessarily suggest any ideological or economic questions but approaches Flächenland-the, the urban sprawl of the area, as an observer, questioning how states develop, contract, and expand. There are markers along the way employing historical statues, civic architecture, and the hint of war scars along the buildings, but the significance here is to treat the area ideologically. It is to propose a broader writ of place with all of those questions undergirding the importance of the catalog. The photographs are also shot in a way that strips photographic artifice to the core. Nothing is precious. Photography is simply the tool for this discussion.
What I gravitate to in work is the dedication to making such a large book of images and the pathos. I find mapping the Saxony-Anhalt environment with its potential to history a nascent idea. It is a territory I sympathize with as I live in a region with a similar geography to the East. There are remnants of recent history embedded in the architecture, geography, and people of such places, and as an outsider, I find it often hard to describe what that is and how to interpret it. So, in seeing these photographs, I feel a certain amount of clarity that my understanding of similar territories is different from how current generations deal with the same set of questions. I also gravitate to the work as it is unassuming. Though all political tendencies remain in work, I am not forced to declare to history or anything outside of its lake of stasis or will to perform for me. Kiwitt’s images ask me to be observed within the context of my knowledge of the world and the pictures she provides. The calculus is open; it purposefully lacks ambition outside of the volume. This volume gives shape but does not define the territory for the reason of impossibility. I wholeheartedly suggest that municipal planners, historians, photographers, and cartographers consider the work. It is gratifying.
