My work deals with the construction and representation of the memory of a place. I choose sites that are transformed, in danger of disappearing, or being forgotten – for example the city of Königsberg/Kaliningrad, an abandoned military reserve, Alexanderplatz square in Berlin, Berlin’s craft shops. Their redevelopment, reconstruction, destruction and/or appropriation are focal points of my research. By identifying and decontextualizing remains of the past, and by modifying and restoring sites, I use found materials to build ephemeral installations and photograph them. By association, the photographs deal with the notion of disappearance, and the precariousness of the balance between what endures and what is lost. The aim of this approach is to question the image of the perception of a place, situated somewhere between reality, memory and poetry.

One word to describe Kaliningrad is Between, a transitional, in-between state. Built on the ruins of another city, this enclave found on the borders of Europe and Russia is a place torn between two ideologies, one Russian and the other German and/or European. These two cultures either ignore or steer towards each other. For instance, some Germans insist on calling it Königsberg, whereas the Russian population there seems to show a certain attraction towards both Europe and Moscow. The city landscape was marked by a series of events. On the one hand, there are remnants of pre-WWII German architecture still standing today. On the other, urban projects (some of which unfinished) have allowed the construction of great housing ensembles. Some latest development measures have interspersed the city with Russian historical monuments in order to reattribute it a certain image.

Within an unknown equation, few people in Europe would know how to locate the city and so it has gained a negative reputation: “Kaliningrad is the ugliest city in the world”. Thus, the re-construction of Königsberg represents an ideal goal. The most recent urban development contests are looking for ways to integrate the history (or histories) of both Kaliningrad and Königsberg. People in the city share the schizophrenic notion of a lost city, very different from the one they live in. They speak of the former as if they knew it...contrasting a dreamed city and the one they live in, somewhere between nostalgia and reality. Kaliningrad and the re-construction of Königsberg constitute a myth and an image of a city right between utopia and dystopia.

On location, I chose to photograph informal situations and structures that depict this transitional state or that show how individuals adapt to this situation: shacks, building sites, scaffoldings, empty lots, destroyed places that have been reclaimed. I looked for and photographed a state of limits, of traces that are both a sign of presence and disappearance.

A second phase led me to reproduce these informal structures in a totally different context – Kronprinz, a historical site, and former bastion. There, I built installations with objects recovered from building sites, old windows, scaffolding wood, etc.
The creation of these structures aims to rid them of their existence. However, the location of their construction played a significant role in choosing materials and adapting their form to the site, thus leading to a certain interpretation and adaptation. This de-contextualization and re-writing are somehow part of the process of de-construction I experienced while exploring the city. On the one hand, through the construction of a fictional installation, ephemeral yet based on reality, I intend to show the fragility that is an integral part of a state of transition. On the other, I intend to blur the lines between reality and illusion.
The main themes of this project include:
- Urban planning: in its historical context and seen as a system made of stratifications, political acts, and successive constructions that have shaped the city’s image – Rowe city collage
- Similarities in the creation of (different) urban utopias – for instance, soviet urban design and Le Corbusier’s modern city.
- Architecture: seen as an act of life and not only as the consequence of a layout on a blueprint, highlighting existing data and ways of life that have adapted to the places they occupy.
- The precariousness of buildings, seen as a reflection of the fragility of human existence.
- Confusion between reality and illusion.

The entire project is composed of photographs, installations, photos of installations and plans.

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Claire Laude (website)