Reports from the crack of dawn. Berichte zwischen Morgen und Grauen

Sven Johne pursues a conceptual approach to documentary photography. Like an investigative reporter he explores various social phenomena, researches background information, visits the places relevant to his story, and embarks on a documentation of these sites. The result is photos, texts, videos, and archives, which raise questions in terms of their authenticity. Oftentimes it is the brief dispatches and sideline reports from local newspapers – on things such as suicides, ships lost at sea, or killing sprees – that prompt Sven Johne to go in search of further clues. Seen as if placed under a magnifying glass, extraordinary individual situations become exemplary portraits of the social status quo. Johne’s serially structured works merge fiction with reality. Crucial is not the truth of the report but the story it tells in relation to the world. The elements of his works function either as apparent or real testimonies of personal fates that are in turn expressions or manifestations of the contemporary condition – in its social, economic, and political constellations.