Our newspaper “Dangerous Object: Eisenbahnstraße” is a documentary and side-taking investigation of the situation in the area around Eisenbahnstraße in the east of Leipzig, where a weapons ban zone was introduced in 2018.
Since November 2018, the situation in the area around Eisenbahnstraße in the east of Leipzig has “finally been defused” – according to the BILD newspaper. This is where the first weapons ban zone in Saxony was established. Even before this, the police were allowed to carry out random controls in this “dangerous place”. Prohibition signs have now been erected around the area and there is a fine of up to 10.000€ for carrying weapons, as well as up to 1.000€ for carrying “dangerous objects”.
But the Eisenbahnstraße is also a dangerous object for any journalistic, documentary, artistic investigation. It seems impossible to take and show pictures with an unbiased view. The images are too much cemented in our minds, since Eisenbahnstraße has been in the headlines for years as a result of brawls, shootings, drug trafficking, knife attacks. Often, these acts are diffusely attributed to non-German or People of Colour.
In August 2019, we published the photo magazine “Gefährlicher Gegenstand: Eisenbahnstraße”, in which we counter the stigma of “Germany's worst street” (ProSieben) with a differentiated, critical image. To do this, we held long conversations with residents, used video stills from relevant TV documentaries and our own bodycam footage and photographed special places in the neighborhood with a large-format camera. In this way, we want to supplement the media's image of the neighborhood; to counter the relevant reports and police portrayals with voices from the neighborhood.
