Eröffnung : SchauFenster . Thomas Billhardt . Fotofestival „Kommunikation und Haltung“

The KVOST SchauFenster presents works by the renowned photojournalist Thomas Billhardt at the "Communication and Attitude" photo festival. The festival, initiated and curated by Haus des Papiers, is taking place for the first time.

Billhardt (1937-2025) is considered one of the most important chroniclers of the eventful history of the GDR.

The "Spartakiade" series documents the large-scale sporting events in Halle in 1978, in which thousands of children and young people demonstrated their athletic prowess in choreographed competitions and at the same time became part of a political spectacle.

The Spartakiade was more than just a sports festival: it was part of a system that combined physicality and discipline with state ideology. In an era in which collective identity was placed above the individual, the GDR used sport as a means of shaping "socialist personalities". Here, sporting performance served not only physical training, but also the symbolic defensibility of an entire state.

Thomas Billhardt's photographs document this ambivalence between pride and compulsion, community and control, ease and staging. His pictures show young people at the moment of commitment, expectation and exhaustion. Beyond the documentary, they also provide a view of today's developments.

Even in functioning democracies, questions of resilience, social protection and political education are increasingly coming into focus. Discussions about the introduction of self-defence courses, emergency drills or military-style programs in schools raise the fundamental question of how a democratic state should react to external and internal threats.

The presentation in the KVOST SchauFenster combines a historical view of authoritarian practices with today's search for forms of democratic self-assertion.