Events
“Unprecedented: Women Photographers from the GDR” Cross Artists’ Talk: Tina Bara and Maria Sewcz
Two participating artists to the exhibition “Unprecedented: Women Photographers from the GDR” will each offer insights into their work and discuss the practical realities of photographic expression in Germany, both past and present. A Q&A session is scheduled following the talk.
Date: Monday/Holiday, July 20, 2026
Time: 14:00–16:00 (Doors open at 13:30)
Panelists: Tina Bara, Maria Sewcz
Venue: Hayama, Auditorium
Capacity: 60
Fee: Free
* German with consecutive interpretation into Japanese
* No bookings needed. Priority admission with numbered tickets. Tickets will be distributed at the entrance hall starting at 12:00.
Organizer: 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
Tina Bara
Tina Bara (b. 1962) studied history and art history at Humboldt Universität in Berlin from 1980 to 1986 and photography at the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst Leipzig under Arno Fischer from 1986 to 1989. During the final decade of the GDR, Bara moved between staged and documentary photography, reflecting on identity, social roles, and the realities of life in the GDR. In July 1989, she moved to West Berlin, and since 1993, has been a professor of photography at her alma mater in Leipzig, where she has played a key role in shaping the department’s profile and mentoring successive generations of artists.
Maria Sewcz
Maria Sewcz (b. 1960) studied photography at the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst Leipzig from 1982 to 1987 and subsequently completed her postgraduate studies there in 1995. Emerging as a distinctive voice in German photography, she has developed a practice that explores urban life, memory, and the passage of time, often through photographic cycles that reflect on changing cityscapes, personal experiences, and social transformations. Her early recognition came with the series inter esse (1985–1987), and since then her work has expanded to encompass photographic essays on cities such as Berlin, Istanbul, Rome, and London.