Siberian Exiles

Claudia Heinermann. Siberian Exiles
Baltic Testimonies of Soviet Repression  

Claudia Heinermann had been working for seven years on a photographic triptych to rescue from obscurity the Soviet Union's oppression of the Baltic nations. This exhibition brings the three parts together.

Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania were independent countries between the two world wars. They were forcibly annexed by the Soviet Union in June of 1940 following the Nazi-Soviet Pact with its secret Protocols. In the wake of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union all the three countries were occupied by Nazi Germany from 1941-1944, and after which they were re-occupied by the Soviet Union. They suffered under the Soviet occupation for almost 50 years until the independence was regained in 1991. Mass deportations, executions and arrests that took place during these annexations left deep scars on the population. Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, old fears of the Russians have resurfaced.

In Siberian Exiles, eyewitnesses tell of the deportation of women and children to remote parts of Siberia, life in the Gulag camps, the organised resistance against the Soviet occupier, and the beginning of the Cold War. The personal stories offer room for nuance, provide new historical insights, and give a voice to the forgotten or ignored victims.

Speaking about her motivations, Claudia Heinermann says: 'No one has ever been convicted of the crimes against humanity the Soviets committed. This was openly discussed for the first time after the Soviet Union's dissolution. However, in Putin's Russia, Stalin's past is again being brushed under the carpet. That is why it is so important to me to preserve the stories which were hidden from us behind the Iron Curtain. They need to be heard to contribute to a correct historiography.'

Heinermann spoke with historians and eyewitnesses and made long journeys through the former Soviet Union, following in the footsteps of the deported Balts. Her subsequent works merge photographic portraits and testimonials with pictures of everyday life, interiors, still lifes, and landscapes. To enrich her pictorial narratives, she also gathers material from private photo albums and historical archives.

Heinermann combines oral histories with visual storytelling (research based on oral traditions), an approach researchers, journalists, and image makers increasingly embrace. Her work is closely linked to a rich photographic tradition, in which political and social engaged documentary focuses on everyday life and narrative, but without spectacular or emphatically dramatic effects.

Curators: Frits Gierstberg, Ieva Mazūraitė-Novickienė

Architect: Mindaugas Reklaitis

Graphic design: Violeta Boskaitė

Translator: Antanas Gailius

Project is financed by Culture Ministry of the Republic of Lithuania

Supported by Goethe Institut Litauen, The Netherlands Embassy to Lithuania,  Exterus.Fundermax