Volume 1 of the Institute for Environment & Design publication series

The first volume of the Zweierlei series will be published on September 22, 2025, by Deutscher Kunstverlag.

In Environment & Archive. Oppositional Surroundings in the GDR, scholar and artist Daniel Wolter examines the issue of environmental destruction in the GDR. For this purpose, he studied photographic collections from the Archive of the GDR Opposition at the Robert Havemann Society. In doing so, he traces the interrelations between the concepts of environment and archive within the historical context of the GDR’s environmental movement.

Drawing on a media-ecological perspective, Wolter correlates different categories of photographic representation and identifies the point of contact at which the environment inscribes itself into the photographic image while, at the same time, interventions into the environment emerge.

The project was supported by a fellowship from the GUI | IUG and is published in cooperation with the Robert Havemann Society.

Zweierlei is the publication series of the Institute for Environment and Design (IUG), focusing on contemporary art studies and artistic research. It is dedicated to the art and culture of the GDR.

Environment & Archive will be available in bookstores from September 22, 2025.