Ute & Werner Mahler
Lissabon ’87/88

In 1987 and 1988 photographers Ute Mahler and Werner Mahler, together with author Wolfgang Kil, made two trips to Lisbon to photograph and describe the city and its people for a book, to be published by Leipzig Brockhaus. They were already well-known in the GDR, and it was a rare opportunity for them to have a look at the other side of the Iron Curtain. But the book planned for 1989 could no longer be released and thus shared the fate of many similar books from the time shortly before the fall of the Wall. The pictures and contact sheets disappeared into gray boxes in an archive in Brandenburg and did not resurface until 2021. Upon sifting through the images, it became clear that Lisbon was actually their first joint project, long before the Mahlers consciously decided to co-author their joint projects. Nevertheless, the shared signature they developed in Monalises of the Suburbs, Strange Days, Small Town, and Streams is already visible. The Lisbon pictures are black and white street photographs in the best sense, taken while strolling through the city that was unknown yet certainly fascinating to the small group of travelers from East Berlin, and, some thirty years later, provides its very own historical perspectives. A small book, carefully conceived, designed and laid out by Florian Lamm.