Women photographers reveal a different side to Berlin

In 1992, in the loft of a crumbling soap factory on Brunnenstraße in Berlin’s former East, a sensual counterpoint emerged to the booming techno scene sweeping across the newly reunified city. The Boudoir, widely considered Berlin’s first queer art salon, was an exuberant cocktail of nightclub, art gallery, and experimental performance space, with three women at the helm: partners Suse Eichinger and Iris Schmied, and their friend Lena Braun. Cream and crimson drapes covered the windows, glaring astroturf lit up the floor, and at the centre lay a sprawling four-poster bed – its springs reverberating not with pounding bass, but with laughter, debate, and passionate encounters among strangers.

Despite being an iconic – if intimate – mainstay of Berlin’s post-Wall scene, the women-owned club faded into relative obscurity after its closure in 1996. Today, its legacy lives on in Zwischen Beton & Boudoir (Between Concrete & Boudoir), an intergenerational photography exhibition curated by Karla Schieferstein and Laura Schnitzer (Sch²). Featuring photographs, films, and archival material from eight Berlin-based image-makers aged between 26 and 76, the show brings to light an alternative history of the city, told from a FLINTA perspective.

The idea surfaced during the duo’s previous photo exhibition, Zweite Stadt, which also explored the intense period of upheaval and reinvention that followed the fall of the Wall. “During our research, it was so much easier to find men who were seen as protagonists of the scene back then. Despite the diversity of people who shaped this era, it’s clear that Berlin’s story is still largely remembered through a male lens,” says Schieferstein, 26. “We wanted to ask who were – and who are – the women driving this collective transformation? What traces do they leave in a cityscape so often dominated by masculine codes?”

The question is especially close to Schieferstein’s heart, having grown up with tales from her mother – sculptor and taxidermy artist Iris Schieferstein, who frequented the Boudoir and was active in spaces like Tacheles, an artist squat-turned-landmark of alternative culture in Mitte. After her mother’s passing in September last year, Schieferstein’s desire to excavate the archives of the period has only deepened.

For Schnitzer, 23, the frustration isn’t just about the dominance of male photographers on gallery walls – “those big names like Harald Hauswald, Ben de Biel, or Wolfgang Tillmans” – but about how the city is shaped more broadly: “From art institutions to the streets themselves, and even queer nightlife and leftist circles, urban life here is still so male-dominated.”

Stepping into the gallery at Hasenheide 54, the curators take you on a journey through private and public, past and present. We encounter the historic work of Swedish photojournalist Ann-Christine Jansson, a sensitive chronicler of Berlin’s political and social upheavals since 1980. Her black-and-white photographs portray gripping scenes of art and activism: clashes between squatters and police, early pro-abortion protests, and members of Hydra e.V., West Germany’s first sex workers’ organisation, distributing condoms along the Wall. Alongside shots of punks at Café M – a legendary Kreuzberg meeting point for queer activists and underground musicians – are searching portraits of Vietnamese workers in Marzahn, East Berlin, many of whom lost their jobs after reunification and were largely forgotten by the city.

Though rooted in distinct moments, the interwoven layout of the exhibition draws these works into close contact with the current moment. Annette Hauschild, a long-time member of the OSTKREUZ photo agency, contributes animated portraits of female artists who shaped Berlin’s cultural landscape in the 90s. These find echoes in the atmospheric shots of Marina Monaco’s Neue Deutsche Welle series. Since 2023, the Argentinian photographer has captured the romance surrounding the revival of post-punk and new wave in Germany. A 16mm film she created with friends opens the show, documenting a day in the city spent dancing through subway stations and crossing streets in sync. It offers a tender rebuke to the solitary, masculine archetype of the flâneur, centring girlhood and group dynamics instead.

Frieda von Wild, daughter of GDR photographer Sibylle Bergemann, presents poetic scenes of everyday city life. These are complemented by 27-year-old Berliner Lucia Jost’s vibrant series Töchter der Hauptstadt (Daughters of the Capital), a love letter to Berlin women of her generation. Shot across parks, fairgrounds, U-Bahn platforms and Döner stands, Jost frames her protagonists not just as subjects, but as agents of their own urban experience – celebrating themes of friendship, motherhood, and emancipation.

In the basement, literary scholar Janin Afken and filmmaker Katharina Voß’s 2020 documentary Subjekträume (Subject Spaces) explores Pelze Multimedia, a lesbian cultural venue that operated in Schöneberg from 1981 to 1996. Described as somewhere between a “playroom” and a “canvas”, Pelze hosted exhibitions, performances and queer gatherings, serving as a vital site of self-determination and artistic production beyond gender norms. As viewers descend the stairs, they pass Emily Dodd-Noble’s portraits of Berlin’s contemporary queer communities, taken at voguing balls, clubs, and DIY raves. “When I look at these images, I feel a sense of safety,” Schieferstein remarks. “Emily captures something so intimate, and the people in her photos clearly feel at ease. It’s precious to have photographers who are part of the scenes they document.”

Across the gallery, historic events fold into one another, echoing and amplifying shared currents of resistance, joy and survival. “The media keeps carving out this generational conflict,” says Schnitzer, “but what we’ve found is that there’s so much to be learned here, so many interesting conversations to be had. To place established photographers in dialogue with emerging ones created so much energy on both sides.”

From a quiet corner, the three founders of the Boudoir look out at viewers, next to a shot of the club’s infamous four-poster bed. Their faces appear in digital footage salvaged from Claudia Zölsch’s lost archive, the original prints long gone. Gaps like this, in material as well as memory, are a reminder that the story remains incomplete. “We know this isn’t the full picture,” says Schieferstein. “It’s still only a tiny piece. But it’s a beginning.”

Between Concrete & Boudoir, curated by Karla Schieferstein and Laura Schnitzer is on show at Hasenheide 54, 10967 Berlin, until 18 May 2025. Keep up with the duo’s curatorial project Sch² via Instagram and their website.