PRESS REVIEWS

"Berlin Mitte Underground shows a district which seems suspended in mid-air. Otaño Ugarte has captured this exceptional period between the fall of the Wall and gentrification." - DER TAGESSPIEGEL (2010) by Danial Grinsted. "The photos are the adventure, she says, impressed by the creative energy of the first colonists of East Berlin, the artist from the East and the West." - MUSEUMS JOURNAL (2010) by Ilia Castellanos. "The Myth of Mitte. Snapshots from a time before - the Wall was gone, communism was in tatters, the investors hadn't yet begun staking their claims in every corner they could find. In her photographs, Eva Otaño Ugarte has captured moments of forgotten post-reunification in Berlin Mitte." - DIE TAGESZEITUNG (2010) by Ulrich Gutmaier. "Artists, squatters, hedonists - beyond a saturated society. And yet these pictures, looked upon in the Now, generate near-utopian conditions. They remind us of a not-even-so-distant yesterday, one which the global, out-of-joint today can only dream of. This is not a flaw; rather it reveals photography's full capacity." - TAZ (November 2016) by Jana Janika Bach. "In her photographs, Eva Otaño Ugarte documents the spaces of opportunity (and the actors thereof) that come about with the disappearance of an overregulated political and social model, and wherein spontaneously the unregimented, the free and wild, can test itself for a limited time." - MUSEUMS JOURNAL (2016) by Stephan Kruhl. "(1980s punk) makes way for an unlimited field for experimentation in the arts, theater, and unregulated life in Eva Otaño Ugarte's photographs from the nineties. The Berlin district of Mitte is a perfect example for the rapid change experienced in the capital. Eva Otaño has captured this pivotal time in impressive black and white photographs." - TAZ (2010)

PHOTOBOOKS

Berlin-Mitte Underground, 1991-1994

(Work in progress)

Berlin-Mitte Underground 1991-1994 photobook, is an urban, historical, and autobiographical photography chronicle dealing with the district of Mitte (formely East Berlin) dynamics in the early 1990s. This early work of Otaño Ugarte's (age 25 back then) focuses, in most general terms, on the demise of the Berlin Wall. It is an exploration of the historic event, especially its impact on squatter's circles and the underground community of artists she readily encountered upon her arrival in the city. While constructed essentially in chronological order, the photobook meets an inherent thematic sequence as well. The author includes several short texts in four languages, German, English, Basque, and Spanish, to lend the book additional contour, context, and structure. With their help, the author's goal is achieved of imbuing her work with enhanced sense, for these photographs were captured a quarter-century ago without any set-up, premeditated concept, or planning whatsoever.

International Master of Photography (World Wide Art Books) Night in a Favela