You and Me
Museum of Contemporary PhotographyAbout The Event
The MoCP, in partnership with the Goethe Institutes of Chicago and Sarajevo, has commissioned German artist team Oliver Sieber and Katja Stuke to produce a new body of work titled You and Me. When the artists first visited Chicago in 2013 to work on a different project, Sieber and Stuke found that the city called forward memories of the Sieber family’s former housekeeper, Indira, a Bosnian-born immigrant who lived in Düsseldorf from 1992 to 1999 before moving to Chicago and subsequently falling out of touch. Sieber and Stuke left Chicago with a new interest in investigating Indira’s background and story. She immigrated to Germany from Bosnia during the Bosnian War and was unable to return to her homeland. Indira eventually moved to Chicago because she was facing deportation and began a new life in the United States. Sieber and Stuke were able to locate Indira on Facebook and they are now tracing her history as it intersects with issues of diaspora, home, social status, and the formation of identity, political protest, and family. Photographs taken in Germany, Bosnia and the United States will comprise the final project, along with family photographs and ephemera from Sieber’s and Stuke's personal archive.You and Me is organized by MoCP’s Assistant Curator Allison Grant.