A Picture I’m Not Allowed To Possess at The Hangar

The Hangar is hosting a talk with Rainer Merkel, and photos by Roubina Margossian. The residency of Rainer Merkel in UMAM is ending, and he will be presenting the results of his three month research.

Rainer Merkel was born in 1964 in Cologne. He studied psychology and history of art and is currently living in Berlin. Among his novels are »Das Jahr der Wunder« (The Year of Miracles) which was awarded with the Jürgen-Ponto-Stiftung Prize and »Lichtjahre entfernt« (Light-Years Away) which was short listed for the German Book Prize.

His newest book is called »Das Unglück der anderen. Kosovo, Liberia, Afghanistan« (The Misfortune of Others. Kosovo, Liberia, Afghanistan) and will be published in October 2012 in Germany. For one year Merkel was working for the humanitarian organization Cap Anamur in a psychiatric clinic in Liberia. He traveled to the three devastated by war countries. The search for what is the key attraction of violence and traumata is the main focus of his reportages. Peace building activists, therapists or soldiers, they all seek for a borderline experience of its kind. But it is Merkel himself, who as an »Embedded Journalist« in a camp of the German army in Afghanistan is being confronted with his own past and traumata. The misfortune of others becomes our own sorrow.

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