Bautzner Straße 112A

Nasan Tur’s work investigates contemporary social conditions and the impact of political ideologies upon individuals and urban landscapes. His installation Bautzner Strasse 112A (2009) explores notions of power, repression and uprising. Comprising fifteen photographs, each depicts a seemingly identical door taken from inside the prison cells of Bautzner Strasse, Dresden – a DDR-era remand center. These images are hung within a restrictively compact room of exactly the same dimensions as the Bautzner Strasse prison cells. Founded in the 1950s, this prison was used by the Stasi to detain and interrogate over 12,000 political dissidents. During the East German revolution of 1989, protesters occupied Bautzner Strasse, peacefully encouraging the collapse of the Socialist Union Party. With the physical parameters of Tur’s installation exactly echoing the photographed prison cells, feelings of claustrophobia, entrapment and repression are elicited. Indeed, the work comments on the social injustices occurring behind closed doors and in prisons globally.

Louisa Elderton