🎙️ Welcome to Ep. #69 of The Urbanaut Podcast, presented in collaboration with Urbanautica.com. In this compelling episode, we sit down with German-American artist Gesche Würfel, whose interdisciplinary work spans photography, urban planning, and visual sociology. Her projects explore the architecture of memory, historical trauma, and environmental change through experimental, research-based image-making.
About Our Guest: Gesche Würfel
Gesche Würfel is a New York-based visual artist known for her analog and concept-driven photography that investigates the socio-political dimensions of space—whether in forests affected by climate change, architecture tied to slavery and Nazism, or the lingering divisions of post-Wall Berlin.
Her work has been exhibited at Tate Modern, Künstlerhaus Bethanien, David Zwirner, International Center of Photography, and many others. She's a recipient of grants from DAAD, the Puffin Foundation, and the North Carolina Arts Council, and her work has been featured in The New York Times, The Guardian, and WIRED.
In this episode, we discuss her major projects:
- Discover how Gesche Würfel retraced the full length of the Berlin Wall to explore the invisible psychological borders that still divide Germany.
- Learn how she uses fire, salt, and solarization to transform photographs into visceral reflections of climate change.
- Uncover the stories hidden in America’s neglected slave dwellings and what their preservation—or erasure—says about historical memory.
- Explore how architecture becomes a tool of oppression, remembrance, and resistance in Gesche’s research-driven visual practice.
Tune in to this episode to:
- Explore how photography can serve as visual historiography and socio-political critique
- Learn how analog image-making and material experimentation can reflect environmental collapse
- Hear how oral histories, archives, and landscapes intersect in the retelling of German and American histories
- Gain insight into the emotional and ethical layers of documenting sites of trauma and transformation
EPISODE LINKS
Gesche’s Website: https://geschewuerfel.com | Instagram: @gewuerfel
Support the Book on Kickstarter: The Absence and Presence of the Berlin Wall
OUTLINE:
0:00 - Coming Up…
0:44 – Welcome & Introductions
1:30 – Gesche’s Journey: From Urban Planning to Visual Art
5:38 – Photography, Place, and the Traces of Human Presence
11:25 – Global Sameness and the Architecture of Identity
15:53 – Influences, Intuition, and Experimental Process
24:32 – Forests in the Anthropocene: Climate, Material, and Metaphor
37:23 – Architecture of Oppression: From Nazi Camps to Slave Dwellings
51:45 – Berlin Wall Project: Absence, Memory, and Reunification
1:18:50 – Portraits and Oral Histories: Telling a Fuller Story
1:25:10 – The Book: Vision, Kickstarter, and Teamwork
1:36:11 – Advice for Artists: Trusting Intuition and Long-Term Thinking
1:39:11 – Closing Thoughts and Where to Find Gesche’s Work
SOCIAL:
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