This project deals in an artistic-photographical manner with two important industrial areas in Germany and Russia, which are linked to each other through the common history of industrial culture. I’m talking of my hometown Siegen and two of the biggest cities of Russia, Yekaterinburg and Perm.
There is something that scarcely anybody knows: Yekaterinburg and Perm were founded by the native of Siegen, Georg Wilhelm Henning. Georg Wilhelm de Gennin, as he is called in Russia, October 11th 1676 till April 12th 1750, was a German born officer and artificer, who was invited from Peter the Great to Russia because of having an outstanding knowledge in metallurgy. In the 1720ies he founded the first mining schools in Russia, travelled to Europe to promote specialists in mining and built new plants in the Urals, which developed in a minimum of time to one of the most important economic and educational centre: Yekaterinburg and Perm.
In 2013 I followed the traces of Henning and photographed important enterprises in Germany and Russia to show their similarity, namely the processing of steel and metal. As result there emerged a series about the industrial architecture in the Siegerland and the Urals, that presents the heretofore little known relation between these industrial areas. The exhibition with my works started already in November in Yekaterinburg und moves afterwards to Moscow, Krasnodar, Pingyao (China) and back to Siegen. In addition, there will be a book with wonderful photographs showing on 120 pages the industrial architecture and culture of different regions, and essays telling interesting things about the Siegerland, the origins of Henning and my work as an artist.

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