Photoworks X Ursula Schulz-Dornburg, Maison Européenne de la Photographie

In Zone Grise: the land in between, German photographer Ursula Schulz-Dornburg explores three overarching themes: boundaries and borders, architecture and the built environment, and the human impact on the environment and landscape.

Born in Berlin in 1938, the artist is now based in Dusseldorf. Schulz-Dornburg’s practice, which spans 50 years, is connected to the systematic process-driven approach and formal rigor of minimal and conceptual thinking that emerged in the 1960s and 1970s. Time is also central to Schulz-Dornburg’s practice, her interest focussed on the cycles of time and decay, and the time in between one great historical event and the next.

Visiting Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Spain, and Syria to create work, Schulz-Dornburg is drawn to sites of social, political and cultural conflict or areas which hold historical importance. Her work highlights how power, conflict, time and decay disrupt and transform the landscape leaving traces for decades to come.

Each body of work will be installed at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie as an installation conceived by the artist for the space. The exhibition includes more than 250 works made between 1980 and 2012.

Zone Grise: the land in between marks a new strand of programming for Photoworks, shedding light on artists who have not had a series of major solo exhibitions before now. This series of exhibitions will be presented across the UK and Europe.