Affecting the burial and an exhumation of photographs, very close by at Stuttgart’s ”Nordbahnhof” Between 1941 and 1945 more than 2,500 Jews were loaded into carriages at Stuttgart’s “Nordbahnhof“, and deported to concentration camps, such as Auschwitz and Buchenwald. Only a few victims of the Nazi period survived this deportation, and the detainment in those camps. The only lasting testimonies are the now unused railway tracks, and fading memories of the victims. The photographer Lutz Schelhorn uses memories as an artistic device. He photographed the railway tracks at the “Innerer Nordbahnhof“ for one and a half years. This is how over 1000 photos originated, all showing the bleak emptiness of this deserted void, which makes one reminisce about the fates of those deported. There are no bodies buried here at the “Nordbahnhof“. But evidence of their shoes, their perspiration and their tears can still be found in the particles of the soil. And surely, there must also be testimony of the terror, which had taken place here. Imprints that can’t be seen will never be completely understood. One could dig into the ground in search for this evidence, probably without success. Why not try an experiment at exactly this location? Why not bury delicate footage at this former transportation point, in order to see what the “Nordbahnhof“ soil will immortalize in or on the celluloid?

The deported are nothing more than nameless numbers in a pale statistic. Numbers were driven to their death, like cattle. And now these lost numbers will be visualized. The earth shall support this experiment by writing stories on photographs, which used to merely show railway tracks, destitute and dreary.

Schelhorns digital photographs were adjusted in terms of colour to the colour photos of the Nazi period and exposed on slides. In cooperation with the artist Stefan Mellmann, 30 scenes were selected, then randomly buried in the ground and left there for three weeks. After this time period, the slides were „exhumed“, then photographed and saved as digital data. Just as in the coarse metamorphosis of humans to ashes, an artistic transformation has taken place; in which water, soil and time are imprinted on slides. Now the earth has given us 30 inspirational impulses for further thoughts. Dead terrain lies in the background of the photographs. In the front, something new has emerged. New thoughts have been visualized. The earth’s evidence is coloured, and the past 60 years are no longer without a trace. They have been manifested. And even if the Photographer Shelhorn and the artist Stefan Mellmann were never contemporary witnesses – they are now. They have let the earth speak in these photographs, which arouse even more association in the observer than their predecessors, which were lacking any statement at all. The patina on celluloid is a tinted memorial. Every picture can carry up to 2500 memories.

Chemistry made recollection; it arouses ones fantasy. A simple chemical process destroyed photographs, enhanced, and then beautified them. Influences have themselves emerged in the photographs, like residue. The chemistry of memory is nothing, but the combination of the 4 elements engraves itself into ones eyes. It is a piece of art, and the acceptation of history, which loses all pallor in the screaming of the blood.

Ralf Preusker