From 2009- 2014 the artist Martin Blume (1956-2015) created a photographic series on the site of the former concentration camp Auschwitz- Birkenau. The aim of his project is to preserve the consciousness of the Shoah and other crimes committed in Auschwitz -Birkenau for future generations. His images appear timeless, and seem to be both deep and empathetic towards the viewer.

Martin Blume was one of the last masters of large format black- and white photography. Works by the artist, who died in 2015, can be found in collections on both sides of the Atlantic, in illustrated books as well as in  exhibitions. In addition to his work as a photographer, Blume graduated in psychology. His studies in this field had a long lasting influence on his art. Despite motifs of landscape and architecture being part of his creations, he always saw himself as an archaeologist, as someone who was always looking for the traces of human beings.  His pictures therefore tell stories, novellas. For over 20 years, Martin Blume also followed such traces in different memorial sites of the Holocaust.

Blurring the pictures of terror in the moment that they were taken, Blume breaks their sharpness and offers a new approach to the viewer. He does not want to show a frozen scene that is merely a symbol, but an image that remains open and invites one to think and feel.  Blume manages to tackle the urge of many to turn away and remain untouched by the setting and its history.

He himself said about his motivation: „It should be, it has to be a German who accepts and  approaches this task artistically. The ineffable, the unspeakable has to be expressed. To preserve and to change go hand in hand. Through my photographic, my abstract approach, everyone is free to find their own inner language- and to therefore feel. Blurriness offers the possibility for self- projection, and helps to avoid distance and pushing the matter aside”.