Edge of the Village - Grenzland

The book “Edge of the Village/Grenzland“ documents a vanishing generation and their lived experience during one of the 20th century‘s most significant geopolitical divisions.

The book “Edge of the Village/Grenzland“ documents a vanishing generation and their lived experience during one of the 20th century‘s most significant geopolitical divisions. It consists of photographs by Dana Mueller Robinson, who was born in a small village in the GDR/Thuringia – close to the border with West-Germany/Bavaria. Starting in 2010, Mueller-Robinson—who now lives and works in Boston—returned to her home village to photograph, research, interview family members, and accumulate historical documents.
The narratives emerging from her family’s personal archives reflect on the generational experiences of living and working in the German Democratic Republic. Her contemporary photographs—of family members, locals, and particularly the landscape where the former border once stood—meditate on the realities and sentiments of post-unification, where the GDR’s complex past continues to echo. The book is published 36 years after the reunification of Germany at a critical moment: the physical border has now faded, yet the psychological, cultural, and political divisions remain—Mueller Robinson’s photographic chronicle captures this liminal state. The book‘s aim is to record these first-hand memories and relationships to place before they disappear.
The text by Asif A. Siddiqi (professor of history at Fordham University, New York) explores a mysterious series of 1958 photographs showing villagers gathered around a handmade rocket constructed by Mueller Robinson’s grandfather in their backyard, staging an imaginative journey to the moon. German sociologist Matthias Quent (professor of Digitalization and Societal Transformation at Ernst Abbe University, Jena) examines the persistent political, social, and demographic inequalities in eastern Germany—and the consequences these have for political mentalities and regional identity formation.