Hans-Christian Schink became known in 2001 for his photo series Verkehrsprojekte Deutsche Einheit (German Unity Transport Projects), in which he documented the connection of the former GDR to the federal German transport network. His large-format colour photographs show with a laconic, objective view the impressive size of these transport structures, which cut through grown landscapes both elegantly and ruthlessly in order to make them available as “green fields” for future economic uses.
The cycle is shown in the exhibition of the Kunstmuseum Heidenheim together with the Aqua Claudia series, which was created in Rome in 2014. The series of pictures traces the course of the 69-kilometre-long aqueduct for the water supply of ancient Rome through the modern cityscape, which looks like a cross-section of all the building eras of the city. In this way, the picture cycle reveals the history of this city and the juxtaposition of ancient monumentality and banal everyday life that is so typical of it.
Viewed together, the two series of images seem like a look at the coming into being and passing away of major infrastructure projects: The German Unity transport projects document the emergence of a huge infrastructure that monumentally and permanently changes the landscapes it opens up, while the Aqua Claudahas itself become a kind of “natural landscape element” in the course of history, painfully demonstrating the transience of such large-scale projects.