ANDREA DIEFENBACH

Andrea Diefenbach completed her studies at the Bielefeld University of Applied Sciences in 2006, with the series ‹Aids in Odessa›. The work received honorable mention at the Plat(t)form 2007 of the Fotomuseum Winterthur, won the Wüstenrot documentary sponsorship award 2007/2008, and in 2008 was published as a photo book by Hatje Cantz. This was followed by individual and group exhibitions, in Hamburg, Mannheim, and New York, among other places. Andrea Diefenbach works for several magazines, and spent 2009 and 2010 in Sarajevo, as an artist in residence, at the invitation of the Sarajevo Goethe Institute. In 2010, her series ‹LAND OHNE ELTERN› was selected for the ‹MOVING WALLS 18› exhibition of the Open Society Institute; that same year she was also a finalist in the competition for the W. Eugene Smith Award.

www.andreadiefenbach.com

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Abstract

In 2006, I completed my final year project at the Bielefeld University of Applied Sciences, by photographing the AIDS-epidemic in Odessa, Ukraine. For this, I spent 2 ½ months in close contact with AIDS-patients and HIV-positive individuals; with some of them, this relationship lasted beyond death. → After this project, I was repeatedly sent to Eastern Europe, by a variety of magazines. As a result, I became even more interested in the great transformations and upheavals happening there – also with respect to the relationship to the European Union. While working on an assignment on the trafficking of women in Moldova, I became aware of the great number of children growing up without their parents, due to the fact that more than one third of the working population has left the country, in order to find employment elsewhere. 10 months after completing this assignment, I returned to Moldova – this trip was made possible by the Wüstenrot Documentary Award – in order to photograph these job-migrants and their families.

Andrea Diefenbach, ‹Aids in Odessa›, 2006