Ricarda Roggan (b. 1972, lives and works in Leipzig) centres her work around found objects and spaces and the traces that people have left on and in them. Roggan’s early series were strongly influenced by the social and political changes in Germany at that time. Her works often convey a wealth of associations, emotions and memories. This is also due to the fact that Ricarda Roggan often focuses on things that are borrowed from the everyday world, but already have a certain historical distance- between present and past, proximity and distance. This is also the case in her films, which are told in the style of a photo archive set to music.

Stadt N is the ideal medium-sized socialist city, perfectly laid out and functional. Everything in it is manageable, the streets radiate towards the central Karl-Marx-Platz. Clear, modern architecture conveys optimism- but this pragmatic urban utopia only exists on paper. All the relevant factors are listed in detail in a book, but what it is all about remains untold: Atomschlag (Nuclear strike).

Howcansomethingthatyoucan'tsee, hear or smell destroy all life in one fell swoop? The Cold War, the arms race and the abstraction of danger shaped the attitude to life of young people in the GDR. This danger became most tangible during the regular civil defense exercises held in schools and companies. At the center of these exercises was the training city of N, which only existed in maps and the book Strukturuntersuchung der stadt N (Structural investigation of the city of N).

Ricarda Roggan's fascination with the phenomenon of City N led her to various photographic and installation-based approaches. First of all, purely photographic: from 1997 to 1999, the artist set out with a large-format camera in search of this standardized city. It became a journey through abandoned factories, military installations and modern residential complexes of the former GDR and a documentation of the silence and paralysis of this time.

These 'tracking shots' through the analog contact prints of this older photographic material form the visual basis for the film Protokoll Stadt N. Compiled and edited in 2022, the film combines personal and political moments from a retrospective point of view.

The other approach was the use of the City N material in a spatial installation in 1999. A newsreader reads the description Structural investigation of city N in an official voice while her voice echoes from the radio. Elements of the installation's furniture can also be found in the large-format photograph in the same room, albeit in a destroyed state. Also in 2022, 23 years later, the film Strukturuntersuchung der Stadt N documents this early installation.