»Women, do you know why we have come together here today? It’s about the upheaval of society as a whole.«

Even thirty years after German reunification, the experiences of women’s and lesbian groups in the GDR remain largely unknown. They represent a historical void, both in relation to the narratives of the Cold War and with regard to an all-German women’s history. In Luise Schröder’s artistic works, photographs, videos and publications, dealing with history and memory and their significance for the present always plays a key role.

Based on her East German biography (born in 1982 in the former GDR), the artist explores the often forgotten activities of non-governmental women’s and lesbian groups and queer people in the GDR in the 1980s and 1990s in her publication »Currents in Motion« in terms of content and aesthetics. In doing so, she delves into previously unpublished image and text collections from the GrauZone holdings of the Archive of the GDR Opposition of the Robert Havemann Society and the Spinnboden Lesbian Archive.

By processing and alienating the archive materials subjectively and from an artistic perspective, she not only addresses the historical gaps but also sheds light on the significance of archives as powerful institutions in the context of remembering and forgetting. Additionally, Luise Schröder explores the poetry inherent in archive materials. Buried and utopian moments inherent in history are emphasized by selecting, editing, and alienating the material. This creates pluralistic perspectives on historical circumstances.

In addition to an extensive image section, the publication includes a subjective-fictional text in which the artist negotiates her viewing and selection processes and thus the construction logic of history. The author and sociologist Judith Geffert, who co-curated the touring exhibition »Together we are unbearable – The independent women’s movement in the GDR«, has written an accompanying text for the publication that places its background in historical context. Furthermore, the publication contains a 28-page, newly compiled reprint of »frau anders«—the only lesbian magazine in the GDR, which served to promote networking and the exchange of information between lesbian groups and individual women.

»Currents in Motion« sheds light on the complex relationship between history and the present, truth and fiction, the private and the public, and addresses strategies of feminist self-empowerment and resistance practices with a view to writing East German women’s history.

The artist book was commissioned, supported and financed by the Berlin Artistic Research Program, the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Social Cohesion, the Stiftung Kunstfonds / Neustart Kultur, and the SpallArt Collection.

Luise Schröder, *1982 Potsdam, Germany; lives and works in Germany and France.