H. Said He Loved Us is a project that draws upon the story of GDR and the German Ministry for State Security (STASI) to investigate the feelings of fear and oppression caused by living under constant suspicion and diffidence.
H. Said He Loved Us combines and overlay archival and documentary research (inclusive of collected documents and interviews with people jailed by the STASI) with a personal and subjective photographic investigation inspired by the book “L’uomo è forte” written by the Italian writer Corrado Alvaro in 1938.
Along with the portraits, images of East Germany cityscapes and anonymous interiors create an unresolved tension between the act of spying and being spied upon.
In the days that followed the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Stasi officers attempted to destroy all information collected and stored until then on its citizens.
Since 1994, the shredded material is preserved and rebuilt by the Federal Commission for the Stasi Archives (BSTU). The goal is to make the material accessible and restored in many cases the people involved find they have been inspected and reported by family, friends and work colleagues.