Who exercises power? How can one person shape the politics of an entire nation? And what do its rulers reveal about a country? For many Germans, the parliamentary elections of 2021 marked a new era. The peaceful transition of power was taken for granted. The narrative of how power is wielded and transferred differs for each country and throughout history. This project visualizes 100 years of global politics through the lens of its protagonists. For all states, portraits of those in power between 1921 and 2021 were selected and then superimposed. The intensity and thus the visibility of each person varies according to the length of their term in office. The result is a series of 199 images that are both irritating and iridescent and serve to reinterpret the classical portrait of a ruler.
about the artist
MACHT is a cooperative project by Birte Zellentin and Patrik Budenz, who graduated from Neue Schule für Fotografie in Berlin in 2012 and 2009. Both are working as freelance photographers.
