54o 4’ 25.86’’ N
11o 33’ 14.252’’ E


01.08. – 10.10.2019



A place off-limits, inaccessible to most, its history embedded in crumbling walls and overgrown paths. The Halbinsel Wustrow lies on the Baltic coast of northern Germany, just across the water from the seaside town of Rerik. Once a fishing village, later a military stronghold, today it remains frozen in time—sealed off, its future uncertain.

For decades, Wustrow was shaped by shifting powers. In the early 20th century, it was transformed into a military training ground, first used by the German army and later taken over by the Soviet forces after World War II. Entire infrastructures were built—barracks, bunkers, air-raid shelters, even a school and a hospital. When the Soviet troops withdrew in the early 1990s, the peninsula was abandoned, declared private property, and closed to the public.

Despite its inaccessibility, traces of its past remain remarkably intact. Unlike so-called "Lost Places" Wustrow has been left largely undisturbed. The absence of intrusion preserves not just the architecture, but also the quiet tension between past function and present stillness.
The remnants of past lives linger: faded Cyrillic inscriptions, delicate pastel-colored walls, and children’s drawings left behind in what might have been a Soviet-era infirmary. These traces do not tell a linear story, nor do they serve as historical documentation. Instead, they exist as fragments—shaped by time, yet resistant to erasure.

Through photography, these spaces are observed as they are—without reconstruction, without resolution. The images do not attempt to reclaim what was, nor do they predict what will be. They simply hold the weight of what remains.

The series was first exhibited at De Drom Galerie, Kröpelin, from August 1 to October 10, 2019, alongside works by photographer Sven Kierst.


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