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The Days After : Johannes Hepp

22 July – 2 September 2006

In The Days After German artist Johannes Hepp visits sites around the world which have been devastated by terror attacks, and which have been indelibly ingrained in the public imagination through global media coverage. However, by arriving on the scene from just a few hours after an atrocity [Tel Aviv] to some 23 years later [Munich], it is not his intention to capture the spectacle of devastation, but to record people going about their daily business in these formerly sabotaged areas. The focus is always on life afterwards and everyday risk-taking; such as riding a train again at Kasumigaseki Station in Tokyo or by attending the reopening of the bar Mike’s Place in Tel Aviv, just three days after a horrible suicide-bombing.

All of these images are composed digitally, using up to twenty medium format slides taken by the artist from the same viewpoint over several hours. This way, they depict several incidents, merging metaphorically the decisive moment of terror attacks with the passage of time. Created in panoramic format, to reinforce the on-going narrative, these restrained but deeply unsettling images question our understanding of indiscriminate violence and bear witness to an era becoming historic: the era of terror.

Hepp adopted the title from the 1983 film The Day After a graphic story about the days before, during and after a nuclear strike upon the USA. Deliberately avoiding notions of objectivity, The Days After does not attempt to portray any illusions of reality, instead the work aims to raise an awareness of the symbiotic relationship between terrorism and the oxygen of publicity generated by media coverage – with innocent human beings providing the collateral.

Johannes Hepp was born in Germany in 1969. Shocked by the atrocities of civil war during his stay in Brazzaville (Congo) in the early 90s, he took up photography. He started his project The Days After in 2002.

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