Hermione Oberück

Hermine Oberück (born February 27, 1951 in Duisburg ) is a German photographer and photojournalist who has been publishing photo reports and long-term photographic observations, showing exhibitions and publishing books for 30 years. From company journalistic reportage photography in the 1980s, her work spans the photographic examination of socio-political issues in the 1980s and 1990s (anti-nuclear power movement, the living conditions of people with disabilities, dementia and women suffering from breast cancer) to portrait collections in the 2000s (e.g. from people with a migration history, from artistically active people with disabilities and women who work in the care of the elderly).

As the only German photographer, Hermine Oberück traveled regularly to the areas in the former USSR that were particularly affected by fallout after the Chernobyl reactor disaster and documented the developments on site over a period of 25 years. In addition, Hermine Oberück accompanied the political developments and disputes in the city of Bielefeld in the 1980s and 1990s with her camera and built up a photo archive on Bielefeld's local history.

Live and act

After studying social sciences, doing a legal clerkship and working as a student councilor, Oberück decided to start over in 1978. She began studying with Jörg Boström and Jürgen Heinemann at the Fachhochschule für Gestaltung in Bielefeld, which she completed in 1981 as a qualified photo designer.

Since then, Hermine Oberück has been working as a freelance photojournalist and photographer. She photographed u. a. on behalf of Der Spiegel and Die Zeit , for national daily newspapers, the Evangelical Press Service, the Bertelsmann Foundation and regional media such as the Bielefelder Stadtblatt. She went on photo trips, a. a. to Israel , Nicaragua , Cuba and the USA , and photographed reports in the GDR , Romania , Albania and states of the former USSR.

In the 2000s, Oberück concentrated on long-term studies, u. a. on the subject of “Life after Chernobyl” and the subjects of “Breast Cancer”, “Migration” and “Women in Care for the Elderly”. She lives in Bielefeld .

"I've always been a political photographer who wanted to contribute, move and change something," said Hermine Oberück in a 2010 interview. In the 1980s and 1990s, she published company journalistic reports on the working conditions of people in different professional fields. In the Diakonische Stiftung Wittekindshof and other institutions for people with disabilities, she portrayed people with physical and mental handicaps. As one of the first German photographers, she delivered photo series about (heart) transplant and epilepsy surgery in the late 1980s.

Before “demographic change” became a social issue, in the mid-1990s Oberück put old people and people with dementia at the center of their work. This resulted in u. a. an exhibition and a book publication on the subject of “leaving the world”. Then she was one of the first photographers to report on women suffering from breast cancer. Her portrait exhibition "Node - Living with Breast Cancer" was shown from 1999 and u. a. Acquired by the NRW Cancer Society and used in public relations work.

From the mid-1980s, Oberück documented regional and supra-regional forms of political resistance, including a. against nuclear energy and right-wing radicalism. Shortly after the Chernobyl reactor disaster in 1986, Oberück traveled for the first time and then at regular intervals to the areas in Ukraine and Belarus particularly affected by the radioactive FallOut . In a long-term study published as a book on the 25th anniversary of Chernobyl, she documented “Life after Chernobyl”, in which she portrayed people who were affected in different ways by the (late) consequences of the GAU .

Since 2006, Hermine Oberück has been working with her cooperation partner Gertraude Strohm-Katzer on a touring exhibition, unique in Germany, on the subject of "I integrate myself from morning to evening", which includes 70 photo-text portraits of people with a migration background from German cities and regions and their entire holdings of It is to be shown April to September 2014 on the occasion of the 800-year Bielefeld celebrations in the Historical Museum of the City of Bielefeld.

Since 2010, Hermine Oberück has been portraying women who work as “caring relatives”, “short-term or long-term domestic helpers”, “supporting neighbors”, “nursing staff” or “geriatric nurses”. Some of these portraits were shown at various locations in East Westphalia-Lippe as part of the exhibition project "Women in geriatric care have their say" and the accompanying brochure .

Book publications and exhibitions

• “Nazmir's Wedding”: Exhibition, Duisburg, 1984 ff.
• “Unreasonable”: Everyday Life of the Mentally Handicapped - Exhibition, Espelkamp, ​​1986 ff.
• "Paths of life. Lippe Jews in Israel ”, - Exhibition and book: Schäfer, Ingrid et al.,“ Paths of life. Lippe Jews in Israel. Pictures and Reports “, Society for Christian-Jewish Cooperation in Lippe e. V., Detmold, 1993
• "Welt Lassen": women encounter old age and death - exhibition and book: Hermine Oberück, Brigitte Fenner, "welt welt", Erev Rav Verlag, 2nd edition 2004.
• "Hub": Living with Breast Cancer - Exhibition and Booklet.
• “Life after Chernobyl” - a long-term photographic observation.
• Exhibition and book: Hermine Oberück, Life after Chernobyl, photography 1986–2010, KunstSinnVerlag, 2nd edition 2011.
• “I integrate myself from early in the morning to late at night” - since 2006 constantly growing traveling exhibition and booklet in cooperation with Gertraude Strohm-Katzer, Bielefeld, self-published, 2006 ff .; 2014 Bielefeld City History Museum
• "Women in care for the elderly have their say" - exhibition and brochure for the exhibition, published by the Working Group of Equal Opportunities Commissioners in Ostwestfalen-Lippe, z. B. available at www.kreis-paderborn.de

Web links

• http://www.migrationsausstellung.de
• http://www.oberueck.com/
• http://www.fotoausstellung-pflege.de
• http://www.weltverlassen.de
• VHS Oldenburg, Hatten + Wardenburg: Exhibitions - "I integrate myself from early morning to late at night"
• Alexandra Busch: Hermine Oberück photographs "Life after Chernobyl" (PDF file)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Hermine Oberück: Proximity and depth of field - Interview with the photographer Hermine Oberück In: Leben nach Tschernobyl 2nd edition, 2011, pp. 12-13.
2. ^ Announcement on the exhibition , accessed on September 8, 2014.