German and U.S. students examining and exploring through documentary photography workshops and exhibitions the transatlantic relationship between their countries

Over 2021-2023 our program team of German and American artists and instructors worked with local high school teachers to develop a cohort of German youth interested in history, public policy, and documentary photography from the diverse neighborhoods of Neukölln in Berlin. We engaged with the youth cohort through innovative, hands-on, active learning-based workshops in documentary photography and history, at key sites of American/German contact in Berlin, including Berlin C/O (Amerika-Haus), the Allied Museum, and the former American listening station at Teufelsberg. In subsequent workshops, the German youth cohort created their own documentary photography projects, along themes and topics connected to an array of German-American values. Lastly, the German youth cohort served as people-to-people-exchange guides to Berlin for visiting Duke University students, and co-created with them a public exhibition of their collective documentary photography work.

—Project Directors Chris Sims and Max Stockburger