heinrich völkel

Heinrich Völkel, born in Moscow in 1974 (mother Russian, father German) and raised in Leipzig, briefly studied architecture at the Leipzig University of Applied Sciences before focusing on his photographic studies at the Lette-Verein in Berlin. Since 2005 he is a member of Ostkreuz-Agentur der Fotografen. In addition to his work for Die Zeit, Stern and Der Spiegel, his photographic interest is particularly focused on the phenomenon of the city and the changes that it goes through. The ability to improvise is a virtue for any photographer. Heinrich Völkel’s (*1974 in Moscow) photography is shaped by her.

The ability to adapt to adverse circumstances also seems to be the subject of many of his works. In the Gaza Strip, he documented the bizarre, urban aesthetic that emerged between the destructiveness of Israeli troops and the Palestinian population’s will to face life. In Morocco, he accompanied African refugees on their self-made fence ladders and captured their leap into supposed freedom. His work tickles the fascination of moments of stillness and standstill, and his gaze often falls on the past and the future, on suffering and hope.

For the OSTKREUZ exhibition “On Borders”, he portrayed the disturbing image of abandoned Cypriot cities which, having once been converted into combat zones, now languish as ghost towns between war and peace.
However, despite all his devotion to objects, he is just as fond of people and their image and always knows how to capture an individual mood and impart it to the viewer, something he has consistently demonstrated, not only in his freelance projects but also in commissioned pieces for numerous magazines. He lives and works in Wiesbaden.

work

series “sleeping beauty amman”

“I’m interested in the subsequent change, how you can read from the wounds that war inflicts on a city the changes for living together.”