Artist
Max Ernst Stockburger
Stockburger was born 1988 in Schweinfurt, Germany which had been home to the U.S. Army for almost 70 years. Growing up directly next to the U.S. installation has shaped his work crucially. After studying documentary photography at HS Hannover and Hiroshima City university he is now working as a freelance photographer and artist in Berlin and Hiroshima.
Although none of Stockburger’s works were actually shot in the United States, the country and its myths are central to his photographic work. By photographing the global outcome of the power projection of the United States Stockburger is mapping the country from the outside.
In his work „Why Quit Our Own To Stand Upon Foreign Ground?“ he is documenting the closure of the U.S. Army Garrison in his German hometown Schweinfurt. Stockburger’s follow-up work アメリカ(Amerika) examines the U.S. influence on post-war Japan.
Currently he is working on a photographic juxtaposition of the development and use of the atomic bomb.
Why quit our own
The US Army Garrison Schweinfurt was home to the US Military for almost 70 years. At its peak, more than 12.000 US Military members and their families lived there. The installation was set up like a small city. Running its own supermarkets, schools, photo studio, and veterinarian. Max Ernst Stockburger documented the closure of the garrison between 2012 - 2014. In 2015 the facilities re-opened as a refugee shelter.