Photographer Martin Roemers (1962) is especially interested in peace and safety in Europe. In this exhibition a selection from two recent series of his is presented.
In 1999 and 2000 he made a documentary photoseries about Dutch soldiers in the Balkan, titled 'Between Hostile Neighnours'. For this reportage, commissioned by the Army Museum in Delft, Roemers photographed daily life and work of Dutch soldiers in Kosovo and Bosnia. The relationship between the local population and the military forms an important part of the series.
The series on abandoned Soviet barracks in the former DDR was made in 1998 and 1999. During the cold war the Soviet Union kept hundreds of thousands soldiers on standby, for the war with the West that never happened. After the fall of the Berlin wall and the German reunion, the Red Army pulled back to Russia. The barracks and military grounds remained behind. Part of these barracks are still empty and decaying. They are a symbol to the end of the cold war.