2025 saw the 80th Anniversary of the destruction of Dresden and the 85th Anniversary of Coventry’s ‘Blitz’. Dave Hirons of the Coventry Association for International Friendship, supported by fellow CAIF member, Nikolai Press, and Coventry historian, Mark Cook, set up a project between the twin cities and an exhibition of archival work in collaboration with Dresden photographers Günter and Christine Starke.
Acclaimed Dresden photographer Günter Starke has spent decades documenting everyday life in the Dresden-Neustadt (New Town) district. His work provides an intimate look into the lead up to the turning point (“Die Wende”) in East German history, capturing the neighbourhood’s transition both before and after 1989, the moment when the Berlin Wall came down, dramatically reshaping Dresden, in particular, and the whole of the East of Germany, in general.
Günter exhibited his archive along with that of his partner, Christine, whose photographs show the Neustadt after reunification. This impressive body of work was exhibited in Coventry’s historic Priory Undercroft.
During their visit to Coventry the Starkes also carried out a documentary photographic project on Coventry’s transport industry, recording 48 subjects, a mixture of veterans and the new generation, including 15 people with connections to Daimler/Jaguar/JLR and Viscount Henry Montgomery whose grandfather’s Humber Staff Car is kept on exhibition in Coventry’s Transport Museum.
With their interest in processes of change, during their 10 days in Coventry, Christine – known for her portraits and documentary photography – and Günter, took an interest in the changes taking place in the historic modernist architectural environment of the city centre as well as coming into contact with the Masterji archive and the work of the Sikh Gurdwara Guru Nanak Parkash.
