Thousand and One Traces

The photographer Christine de Grancy stands as one of the most important representatives of this genre. At the regionale08 in Hainfeld Castle, the artist places women at the centre of her exhibition. These are for one Gisele, and the other, the last Baroness of the Hammer-Purgstall lineage, Cleo, whose lifelines ran for a short time in parallel at Hainfeld Castle. In 1933, both have to make a decision: Cleo stays, and becomes mistress of Hainfeld Castle, Gisele leaves and after a roundabout reaches Amsterdam. What is quite unusual for a photography exhibition is that most of the pictures can actually be touched.

The second focus lies on Joseph Hammer-Purgstall who retreated to Hainfeld Caste in order to write, amongst others, his principal historical work ‘Die Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches' (History of the Ottoman Empire). The photographer has travelled throughout the orient for more than two decades, the focus of her photographic interest lying with the Muslims of Kashgar, the Pathans of Northern Pakistan, the Tartars and Kazakhs of Russia, the Kurds of Turkey, the women of the Touareg, and the Saharaouis of the Sahara. The event ends with representatives of this extraordinary people of the Western Sahara explaining the current situation there, and the Sahraoui musician Mariem Hassan making their music come to life.