Photographer Brigitte Kraemer has been documenting life in the Ruhr region since the 1980s. The Ruhr Museum's new special exhibition "Wie man lebt - wo man lebt. Documentary photographs by Brigitte Kraemer" shows around 200 of Kraemer's photographs from over 40 years: of people from the Ruhr area, in their leisure time and everyday life, but also in difficult situations. All of the photographs are characterized by Brigitte Kraemer's unmistakable style, which is close and undisguised and testifies to a very special empathy for the people photographed.

With this exhibition, the Ruhr Museum presents the third and, for the time being, last show on the important female photographers of the Ruhr region. After Marga Kingler and Ruth Hallensleben, the focus now shifts to Brigitte Kraemer, whose work was added to the museum's photo archive in 2022 with the support of the Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach Foundation - one of the largest additions to the photography collection in the museum's history.

Museum Director Prof. Heinrich Theodor Grütter: "Brigitte Kraemer created the 'Ruhri', the type of Ruhr area person in photographs. Like almost no other photographer, she has captured the joy of life, but also the challenges of the people in the Ruhr region over decades. The fact that this unique social document is in the care of the Ruhr Museum is a great asset - for the collection and for the region."

"When a good situation arises without me contributing anything, I take a photo. That's what interests me about photography. I don't stage things, I can't do that at all. If the composition of the situation is perfect, I'm thrilled. Then the picture tells its own story." (Brigitte Kraemer in an interview with Stefan Dolfen in August 2025)

The gallery exhibition on the 21-meter level of the Ruhr Museum shows around 200 documentary photographs by Brigitte Kraemer from over 40 years. Brigitte Kraemer is still a freelance photographer today. She usually poses the subjects of her projects herself and sometimes pursues them for decades. Her range of subjects is broad and shows almost the entire everyday life of people in the Ruhr region.

The exhibition divides Kraemer's various series and projects into three chapters:

The "So close" chapter shows the photographs on the themes of everyday life and leisure, most of which were taken in the Ruhr region. The focus here is on public space, where Kraemer observes people and scenes, which she photographs in the style of street photography or as reportage. She photographs people with great empathy and humor while camping and in allotments, on the canal, barbecuing, shopping, in ice cream parlors, in chip shops, on coffee trips, at funfairs and drinking establishments. The result is a photographic panorama that uniquely portrays the people of the Ruhr region over the last few decades.

In the chapter "So far away" , she goes to places that are closed to the majority of society and where people have to struggle with problems: in women's shelters, women's prisons or in the Peace Village International. Using the method of participant observation, she photographs and shows life in these places and makes social grievances visible.

The pictures make the viewer feel that Kraemer perceives the people depicted as personalities and does not reduce them to their role as victims or their tragic biographies. The pictures show sad and difficult moments as well as funny and light-hearted situations.

The chapter "So far and so near" shows long-term photographic projects on migration and labor migration since the 1980s, on refugee movements since the 1990s and on the various religious communities in the Ruhr region since the mid-2010s. The photographs make the diversity of the German migration society visible. Kraemer's respectful approach provides insights into a parallel world that exists in close proximity, yet hidden from view: Kraemer shows everyday life in the homes of migrants from Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and African countries, among others; she looks into mosques, synagogues and temples and accompanies religious ceremonies.

The exhibition also includes Brigitte Kraemer's current works and projects that have been created since January 1, 2025. A screen displays images selected by the photographer, which are supplemented at regular intervals with newly created images. This gives visitors an insight into the photographer's latest work and allows them to follow her current projects. The screen is integrated into a media table with all the photo books and reproductions of selected newspaper reports from Konkret, Stern and Brigitte, among others.

In addition, an interview film with Brigitte Kraemer can be seen, which was commissioned by the Ruhr Museum in August 2025 for the exhibition. The Essen-based photographer and designer Stefan Dolfen visited Brigitte Kraemer at her workplace and interviewed her about her life, her projects and her working methods.

Brigitte Kraemer, born in Hamm in 1954, has been photographing social life intensively and in her own very specific way for more than 40 years, not only but above all in the Ruhr region. She describes herself as a documentary photographer with a focus on street photography, reportage and long-term documentation.

She studied visual communication at the University of Essen - Gesamthochschule (formerly Folkwangschule). She began working as a freelance photographer in the early 1980s, documenting everyday life and leisure time in the Ruhr region comprehensively and with great empathy, humor and sociological flair. In long-term projects, she also reports sympathetically from closed and protected spaces such as women's shelters or prisons. Migration is a major topic for Kraemer. She has been accompanying migrant workers and their children and grandchildren for more than 40 years.

Stefanie Grebe, Head of the Photographic Collection at the Ruhr Museum, describes Kraemer's work as follows: "Be it through her closeness to the person depicted or through the formal means of image composition - Brigitte Kraemer manages to make stories, situational scenes and emotions relivable in the image without many accompanying words. Her radically subjective approach enables her to reflect the issues that affect and concern society as a whole. From the 1980s to the present day, there have hardly been any documentary photographers in Germany who are comparable to Brigitte Kraemer or who work, exhibit and publish with such concentration on socially relevant topics."

Brigitte Kraemer uses the method of participant observation in her work. She thus becomes part of the scene to be observed. Within the protected spaces, she establishes proximity to the families, women or children and loses the status of an outsider. The method helps her to work on the mainly sociological issues of her projects. "I am no longer an outsider, but take part of it into my own life," says Brigitte Kraemer, describing her work.

Her focus is on living together and social behavior shaped by values and norms. Topics such as integration and exclusion, leisure behavior, faith, gender, migration, everyday life, family, social injustice and social change are the photographer's main areas of interest.

"By reflecting on each other and showing mutual respect for the diversity of affiliations and individual uniqueness, photographs can try to make what has happened narratable and promote understanding for a humane life without exclusion and oppression," says Brigitte Kraemer.

Kraemer still works as a freelance photographer today, but has also repeatedly published major reportages for major magazines and journals such as Der Spiegel, Stern, ZEITmagazin and Brigitte and has worked for renowned organizations and institutions.

Since 1984, Kraemer has taken part in solo and group exhibitions in Germany and abroad and has published numerous photo books. Since 1985, Brigitte Kraemer has regularly received important awards for her work. Today she lives and works in Herne.

With the support of the Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach Foundation, the estate of Brigitte Kraemer was purchased in 2022. Following the acquisition of the holdings of the Essen Stadtbildstelle in 2012, the purchase of Brigitte Kraemer's entire photographic collection is the largest expansion of the Ruhr Museum's photographic collection. Almost 400,000 images - mainly negatives, but also slides, prints and digital photographs - have increased the Ruhr Museum's holdings by around ten percent to 4.5 million photographs. The collection also includes numerous specimen copies in the form of illustrated books and magazines. The acquisition took place in four stages and was completed in 2024.

The collection in the Ruhr Museum's photo archive includes series, long-term projects and reportages, primarily on the topics of "social issues", "everyday life", "leisure" and "migration", which were either commissioned or created as independent works over a period of more than 40 years. Around half of the subjects were photographed in the Ruhr region, the others throughout Germany and Europe, as well as in Thailand, Nepal and Gambia.

The collection of Kraemer's photographs in the photo archive will continue to grow over the next few years. All works taken by the photographer since 2022 and all future works will also be transferred to the Ruhr Museum.

"How to live - where to live. Documentary photographs by Brigitte Kraemer" is the third exhibition in the three-part series on female photographers who were and are active in the Ruhr region. Their work has had a significant impact on the history of photography in the region.

It all began in 2023 with the exhibition "On the road with Marga Kingler. Press Photographer in the Ruhr Area", which showed an impressive kaleidoscope of urban life from 1951 to 1991. This was followed by "Pictures on commission. Photographs by Ruth Hallensleben 1931 - 1973", an exhibition that showed pictures from the estate of the internationally renowned commissioned photographer for the first time and depicted the impressive panorama of her diverse work. "We are thus looking back on a century of female photographers in the Ruhr region," says Prof. Heinrich Theodor Grütter. "With this exhibition series, we are expanding the spectrum of photography from the Ruhr region, both thematically and formally, and showing the immense importance anddiversity of theRuhr Museum's photography collection," Grütter continues.

The series also underlines the importance of photography in the Ruhr region and especially in Essen, where several renowned institutions - the Museum Folkwang, the Krupp Historical Archive, the Folkwang University of the Arts and the Ruhr Museum - have joined forces to form the Center for Photography Essen. Since 2010, the series has been preceded by exhibitions at the Ruhr Museum on classics of Ruhr area photography such as "Heinrich Hauser - Schwarzes Revier" (2010), "Chargesheimer. The Discovery of the Ruhr" (2014/15), "Erich Grisar. Ruhr Area Photographs 1928-1933" (2016), "Josef Stoffels. Coal Mines - Photographs from the Ruhr Area" (2018) and finally "Albert Renger-Patzsch. The Ruhr Area Photographs" (2018/19).

An accompanying program will take place during the exhibition. In addition to guided tours and a quiz for families, there are also exhibition tours with Brigitte Kraemer herself for the first time. The four dates each have a different focus and include a tour with the photographer as well as a discussion afterwards:

Thu 6.11.25_5pm Exhibition tour with Brigitte Kraemer, followed by a discussion with former Stern reporter Werner Schmitz;

Thu 22.1.26_16 h Exhibition tour with Brigitte Kraemer, focus: Cultural diversity;

Sat 7.3.26_16 h Exhibition tour with Brigitte Kraemer, focus: Women's shelter followed by a discussion with representatives of a women's shelter;

Thu 28.5.26_16 h Exhibition tour with Brigitte Kraemer, focus: Leisure time.

The events accompanying the exhibition can be found in the:

Calendar

During a tour of the exhibition for teachers, staff and the exhibition team will explain the concept and themes of the exhibition. In the guided tours for school classes, pupils learn the background to the photographs and interesting details about the photographer Brigitte Kraemer's working methods.