Events
Artists’ Talk: East and Far East: Distance and Time in Photography
To coincide with the exhibition Unprecedented: Women Photographers from the GDR, three participating artists visiting Japan, along with Ishiuchi Miyako—one of Japan’s leading photographers—will each offer insights into their work and discuss the practical realities of photographic expression in Germany and Japan, both past and present, as well as issues of memory and place, in relation to their respective works. A Q&A session is scheduled following the talk.
Place: Goethe-Institut Tokyo, Hall (7-5-56 Akasaka, Minato-ku, Tokyo)
Date: Saturday, June 20, 2026
Time: 13:00–16:00 (Doors open at 12:45)
* German and Japanese with simultaneous interpretation
* Free entry, advance registration required
Registration via the form below (e-Kanagawa electronic application):
Application Form
Co-organizers: Goethe-Institut Tokyo and The Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura & Hayama
Grant from: ifa – Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen e.V.
With the cooperation of: Stiftung Rheinbeckhallen and Loock Galerie, Berlin
Panelists
Christiane Eisler (b. 1958 in Berlin)
Christiane Eisler studied photography at the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst Leipzig under Harald Kirschner and Evelyn Richter from 1978 to 1983, followed by a two-year postgraduate course with the latter. Two books were created for her diploma project, featuring photographs of a youth work center and punks in the GDR, titled Ich trage ein Herz mit mir herum (I Carry a Heart Around with Me). Since 1983, she has been working as a freelance photographer. Exhibitions showcasing her photographs of punks were repeatedly banned and shut down in the GDR.
In 1990, she co-founded the photo agency transit Leipzig and has since worked with magazines and journals, trade union institutions, foundations, corporations, advertising agencies, and travel book publishers. Her main areas of focus include socio-documentary photo essays, portrait photography, and landscape photography.
Since 1981, she has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions both domestically and internationally. Since 2000, she has published various photobooks and publications. She lives and works in Leipzig.
Margit Emmrich (b. 1949 in Chemnitz, Saxony)
Margit Emmrich studied photography at the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst in Leipzig from 1969 to 1974. She completed her diploma in 1974 with projects focusing on Puberty (book) and Allotment Gardens (film), and subsequently worked as a freelance photographer in Leipzig and Berlin until 1979.
Following a 13-month political imprisonment in the GDR from 1979 to 1980, she was released to the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) and moved to Freiburg, where she worked as a staff photographer. In 1994, she returned to Leipzig, where she currently lives and works as a freelance photographer. Since 2004, she has also been professionally engaged in painting and graphic art.
ISHIUCHI Miyako (b. 1947 in Kiryu, Gunma)
Ishiuchi Miyako grew up in Yokosuka, Kanagawa. In 2005, she represented the Japanese Pavilion at the 51st Venice Biennale with her series Mother’s, which features photographs of belongings left behind by her late mother. Since 2007, she has been working on the series Hiroshima, documenting the personal effects of atomic bomb victims—a project that has garnered widespread international acclaim. In 2014, she received the Hasselblad Award in Photography, and in 2024, she was honored with the Woman in Motion Award at the Rencontres d’Arles international photography festival.
A major solo exhibition is planned for February 2027 at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris.
Her works are housed in the collections of institutions such as the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo; Tokyo Photographic Art Museum; Yokohama Museum of Art; The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York; the J. Paul Getty Museum; and Tate Modern.
Ute Mahler (b. 1949 in Berka, Thuriniga)
Ute Mahler graduated in 1974 from the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst Leipzig and has worked as a freelance photographer ever since. She first gained recognition for her work with the East German fashion magazine Sibylle and later contributed for numerous national and international magazines.
In 1990, she co-founded the renowned OSTKREUZ photo agency. Alongside her commissioned work and teaching roles at the University of Applied Sciences Hamburg and the Ostkreuzschule, she has consistently pursued her own artistic projects, including collaborations with her husband, photographer Werner Mahler, since 2008.
Her photography has earned numerous awards. Most recently, she was honored along with Werner Mahler with the Culture Award of the German Society for Photography (DGPh) in 2023 and the Federal Cross of Merit in 2024.