At the beginning of the year, the C/O Berlin Foundation announces a dual leadership for the first time in the programming department of C/O Berlin with Dr. Kathrin Schönegg and Sophia Greiff. Kathrin Schönegg, who has already been a curator at C/O Berlin since 2019, had been acting head of the programme since October 2022 with the departure of Felix Hoffmann, former chief curator and board member. Sophia Greiff prevailed in a two-round application process among numerous applicants. From 1 February 2023, the new dual leadership will further develop the programmatic orientation of the exhibition house at Bahnhof Zoo and further expand its reputation as one of the leading institutions for photography in Europe.
Fig. above: Dr. Kathrin Schönegg and Sophia Greiff, Programme Management C/O Berlin © C/O Berlin Foundation, David von Becker
Stephan Erfurt, Chairman of the Board of the C/O Berlin Foundation: “Since 2019, Kathrin Schönegg has been inspiring us with her photo-historical expertise and her wealth of ideas, among other things in the conceptualisation of thematic exhibitions on current image culture. With Sophia Greiff, we have been able to gain an accomplished photography curator for the C/O Berlin Foundation, who from now on will expand the profile of the house in the field of documentary photography at the interface of photojournalism and artistic practice. I am firmly convinced that the programme is in competent and energetic hands with Kathrin and Sophia. With the dual leadership in our programme department, we will undoubtedly build on our previous successes.”
Sophia Greiff was a research assistant in the Visual Journalism and Documentary Photography programme at Hannover University of Applied Sciences and Arts from 2016 to 2021 and co-edited the volumes image/con/text (Reimer 2020) and Images in Conflict (Jonas 2018). Previously, she was a long-time co-curator of the Fotodoks Festival for Contemporary Documentary Photography and a fellow of the Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach Foundation in the Museum Curator:in Photography programme. As a doctoral candidate at the Folkwang University of the Arts, she is researching the research-based photo book.
Kathrin Schönegg is a photo historian. Her dissertation, Fotografiegeschichte der Abstraktion (History of Photography of Abstraction), was awarded the DGPh Research Prize for the History of Photography. After various positions in the Museum Curator for Photography programme of the Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach Foundation and freelance work for the Berlinische Galerie and the photo festival Les Rencontres d’Arles, among others, she has been a curator since 2019.
Les Rencontres d’Arles, among others, she has been curator of the C/O Berlin Foundation since 2019. In addition to solo presentations, she recently curated the thematic exhibitions Send me an Image. From Postcards to Social Media (2021) and Songs of the Sky. Photography & the Cloud(2022).
Kathrin Schönegg and Sophia Greiff, programme directors of the C/O Berlin Foundation: “C/O Berlin has long been regarded as the address for photography in the capital and, as a house with international appeal, has an impact far beyond the city’s borders. We are very much looking forward to further sharpening the profile of the institution in the coming years and to illuminating the medium in its various facets: In the applied and the artistic, in the documentary and the experimental, in the historical as well as the contemporary. At a time when photography acts as a mirror of society and influences both analogue and digital worlds, it is important to create places for lively discourse on current image culture and to expand the canon. C/O Berlin should be an open house for photography, where we learn together to push national, social and media boundaries.
WHERE?
C/O Berlin Foundation. Amerika Haus
Hardenbergstraße 22–24
10623 Berlin-Charlottenburg
WHEN?
Daily 11:00 am – 8:00 pm
www.co-berlin.org