Linocut and photography by Börries Hahn and Aljoscha Hoffmann - 6. - 28. Mai 2023Between black & white
Aljoscha Hoffmann
Aljoscha Hoffmann (born 1989) works as a colourist for film and advertising and follows his passion, photography, whenever possible.
He already shot films and worked in a photo studio during his school years. After his training as a media designer, he discovered post-production for himself, especially digital colour correction. In the meantime, he can look back on over 90 cinema and TV projects as well as various advertising productions. “With the birth of my first child in 2017, I intensified my photography and began to sharpen my eye for the non-moving image,” he says.
“I mainly dabble in street and nature photography. I discover my motifs by chance and always try to rediscover angles. In doing so, I am increasingly interested in converting the motifs into “black and white” and I aim for a more cinematic style. I photograph mostly digitally and partly on analogue film.”
Börries Hahn
After training as a repro photographer, Börries Hahn studied graphic design at the University of Applied Sciences in Münster via the second educational path. Triggered by an engagement at the student theatre there, he was drawn to the theatre, where he began as a stage hand and ended his time in the theatre as a stage designer in 1988.
Since the end of the 1980s, he has been working as a freelance costume and set designer for various cinema and TV feature film productions throughout the country (but also in Iceland and Italy, among other places), before a continuous collaboration with the Hessischer Rundfunk in Frankfurt am Main began in 2000.
Since 1991 (then at SWR in Baden-Baden) he has been responsible to this day for the stage design of the oldest of all carnival programmes, “Mainz bleibt Mainz, wie es singt und lacht” (Mainz remains Mainz, as it sings and laughs), for both ARD and ZDF in equal measure.
“Moving to the country and living an artist’s life together”, that was one of the motives why the married couple Astrid Ruppert (the well-known writer and scriptwriter) and Börries Hahn decided to move to the Vogelsberg in 2013, leaving the city of Wiesbaden behind.
In his home village Ober-Ofleiden, he created the Fassettenkreuz on Welckerstrasse as part of the redesign of the forecourt in front of the beautiful old church of St. Martin as one of the 10 different places to stay on the Welcker-Wiesen-Weg (WWW), which Michael Ruhl from Alsfeld realised in cooperation with the town of Homberg (Ohm).
“After that, I disappeared back into my little shed studio to find out which art direction and craft suited me and how I could do it myself within my own four walls. Through my regular annual visits to the ‘Sommerakademie Marburg’ as a learner in various courses, I came to linocut; after woodcut one of the oldest relief printing processes in the world. Many things intertwine, for one thing: preparing the linoleum plates, sanding them for the preliminary drawing, guiding the pencil, thinking in reverse, guiding the cutting knife and cursing when something is cut away that should have been ‘left standing’,” says the artist. “Then it’s irretrievably gone, you start all over again, or continue to recognise mistakes or even successful things only, on the other hand: when these motifs cut in linoleum are printed, only then do you understand what everything is different from what you had imagined.”
“My very special thanks go to the Alsfeld History and Museum Society for the opportunity to create a joint exhibition with my son Aljoscha Hoffmann, together the first one in our lives. Aljoscha Hoffman is a professional film colourist and therefore very close to photography. Since his subject is black and white photography, we found it very fitting to bring these two art forms together.
We are very much looking forward to your visit!”