The essence of mourning: Photos of Paris after the attacks

Like so many other people on that Friday night, photographers Maurice Weiss and Annette Hauschild were in Paris to celebrate. November 13 was the opening of an exhibition at the Goethe Institut in Paris showcasing 25 years of works by the members of the renowned German photo agency OSTKREUZ.

The idea of founding an agency to promote the works of East German photographers had actually emerged in Paris a quarter of a century earlier, as they were invited in 1990 by President Mitterrand to show their works in the French capital during an exhibition on GDR artists.

Ostkreuz is the name of a train station in the eastern part of Berlin where different railways converge. The name offered an interesting symbol for this group of photographers: this intersection located in their part of newly unified Germany could lead them to head in all directions.

From the forced evacuations of squatted houses in East Berlin after the fall of the Wall to the Arab Spring, or from heavy metal youth culture to the International Court of Justice, OSTKREUZ photographers have specialized in capturing the essence of hot social topics.

Today, the agency is world-renowned. It has 20 members aged between 30 and 65, coming not only from former East Germany but all over Europe, and these photographers have won several national and international distinctions.