Climate change, migration, wars, and the resurgence of ideological thinking are creating an atmosphere of uncertainty in society. Since 2024, in his ongoing series Our present. Refractions, photographer Göran Gnaudschun has sought to capture the prevailing mood and the state of society. Galerie Poll is presenting his new work for the first time as part of the 11th European Month of Photography Berlin 2025.

In Our present. Refractions, Gnaudschun blends portraits of people from different generations and backgrounds with images of landscapes, fleeting moments, and found scenes – connecting individuals with symbols of political and social conflicts, and with his own personal environment. The colour photographs come together in the gallery space to form a dense, layered structure. His portraits depict witnesses of an ever-moving present, where what is possible quickly becomes what once was. Neuroscientists say the present lasts only three seconds – after that, it is already the past.

A dark cloud drifts ominously through the crowns of tall oaks. A child leaves colourful handprints as a tribute to his fallen father in the Forest of Remembrance of the German Armed Forces in Geltow. An Israeli dog tag dated 7th October 2023 serves as a stark reminder of the brutal Hamas attack that claimed over a thousand lives and resulted in more than one hundred hostages. Yet the series also captures fleeting joys and everyday moments of lightness: midges dancing in the sunlight, three white butterflies somehow casting four black shadows, a delicate feather resting in a child’s hand. Close-ups of data cables, plastic sheeting, stubble, and blades of grass contrast with sweeping panoramas of the Lieberose Desert or the floodwaters of the Oder River.

The idea behind Gnaudschun’s new series is simple: photographing the here and now. Göran Gnaudschun: “Everyone experiences the present in a different way. I feel like there are so many issues, so many problems in the air, and the world is changing at an incredible speed. I am trying to find my own images for that.”

Born in Potsdam in 1971, Göran Gnaudschun studied artistic photography (diploma) and visual art (master student) with Prof. Timm Rautert in Leipzig from 1994 to 2003 at the Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig (HGB). He has received numerous scholarships and awards for his works including the working scholarship of the Foundation Kunstfonds Bonn in 2013 and the Brandenburg Art Prize in 2018. In 2016–2017, he held the scholarship of the German Academy Villa Massimo in Rome. Since 2018, Gnaudschun has been teaching at the Ostkreuz School of Photography in Berlin, and since 2022 he has taught at Potsdam University of Applied Sciences (Fachhochschule Potsdam). His photos have been shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions in institutions and museums in Berlin, Hannover, Frankfurt, Munich, Paris, Riga, Rome, Salzburg, and San Francisco and can be found in various public collections, including the Art Collection Deutsche Börse, Frankfurt am Main, the Berlinische Galerie – Museum für Moderne Kunst, Berlin, the Folkwang Museum Essen, the Potsdam Museum, and the Poll Art Foundation, Berlin. Göran Gnaudschun lives and works in Potsdam.