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Three
years ago, Hiller was walking through the centre of Berlin
when she came across a most unexpected street sign. It read
Judenstrasse - Jews' Street - as if there were nothing odd
about preserving the name of a place whose former residents
had only so recently been killed. Hiller was shocked and
amazed. She took a journey through Germany. Judendorf, Judenhof,
Judenweg, Judengasse - it turned out there were 303 streets
named after their sometime inhabitants. Hiller photographed
them all: in leafy lanes, in suburbia, in snowy towns and
busy cities... The tension between these perfectly cheerful
locations and the emotions invoked by the signs increases
exponentially. Subtlety is everything. Hiller seems to present
the evidence quite coolly, but this only allows an even
greater pressure of feeling to build. The images are haunted
by the signs: literally signs of people who are no longer
there, whose lives were destroyed. To witness them all together
is to feel the past rise up...you want to shout 'Look! Don't
you see them?' As if you were suddenly able to see ghosts.
There aren't many artists whose every new work you would
want to see and Hiller is one of them.
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