Jonathan Teklu, York Christoph Riccius, Alard von Kittlitz

Uckermark Porträts

Wie die Leute, so das Land

More lakes than one can count, dense forests, and fertile meadows: the Uckermark, one of Germany’s most sparsely populated regions, offers plenty of room for diverse visions of the good life. The people who grow up here are said to be down-to-earth and fiercely attached to their land. The north-east of Brandenburg also has one of Germany’s weakest economies, and so, in many places, it is the young people in particular who are leaving and not coming back. Editor Jonathan Teklu and photographer York Christoph Riccius give the region a face with their illustrated book Uckermark Porträts and show who is hidden behind the end moraine landscape shaped by the ice age. The Uckermark recently emerged as a popular tourist destination, especially for Berliners looking to escape the bustle of the metropolis for a weekend. More and more of them have come to stay and become a mainstay of the local society. They have saved dilapidated historic farmhouses and lovingly restored them, established craft businesses, opened eco-friendly hotels, or gone into organic farming. New diversity for a region that seemed condemned to slow decline.

Teklu and Riccius used the summer of 2020 to go on a tour of the neighborhood. The fruit of their efforts is a photographic society portrait that captures the people who make this place what it is. With a foreword by Jonathan Teklu and a short story by Alard von Kittlitz.