Claudio Hils documented the first decade of the new Germany, which he calls Neuland. After the fall of the Wall in 1989 the mood was euphoric: from that moment the East and West would become one, and the West German social model would symbolise the end result. Hils was deeply sceptical about the optimistic mood, and decided to do his own investigation. In NEULAND he shows that the discrepancies between East and West Germany have indeed become smaller, but they certainly have not disappeared. Traditional differences have still not been overcome, and provoke mutual resentment. The then extremely positive mood in the German media to a large extent ignored the complexity of the reunification process.

Claudio Hils (b. West Germany, 1962) is a freelance photographer and media designer. He previously took part in the Noorderlicht photofestivals Another Asia in 2006 and Act of Faith in 2007. Neuland appeared as a book in 1999.