Adventures in the GDR and women’s ‘inner eye’

The time is fleeing from the memories (Gundula Schulze Eldowy)

From September until December, an exhibition named ‘Inner Eye’ has been running at Side Gallery, the place I hang out on a Sunday. The exhibition focuses on photography in the GDR (German Democratic Republic) and shows images taken in East Germany by various photographers and filmmakers throughout the early seventies until the late eighties.  A few weeks ago,  I was lucky enough to help at the cinema and watch a number of documentaries in a mini-festival programmed to tie in with the exhibition. At these events some of the German photographers and directors working at that time spoke of their own practices too. This is pertinent to the Side Gallery as back then Amber (the film making collective that also run the Side) were making films in the GDR showing how there were similarities in social issues in both the…