An der Kante brennt noch Licht
"Dear LOBA Nominee,
Congratulations! You have been nominated to participate in the Leica Oskar Barnack Award 2025 competition!
Once again, this year’s LOBA competition is based on nominations from all over the world. They include renowned curators, gallery managers, art directors and numerous photographers.
With this nomination process, the honor of being chosen as a nominee is an esteemed accomplishment of its own, as you are recognized and hand-selected by some of the most respected figures impacting the world of photography"."
Check out the 12 selected Shortlist finalists at Leica Oskar Barnack Award - stunning work.
It is an honor to be part of this <3
About An der Kante: The project explores the shifting landscapes and human experiences in the villages affected by structural change and displacement. At its core lies the question: What remains when places are abandoned, and what emerges when spaces are left behind?
Through photographs and narratives, the project captures the tension between presence and absence, memory and loss. Empty houses, trimmed front gardens, and fading infrastructures tell the story of uprooted communities. Yet, signs of life persist: a private trailer site where new homes emerge, a greenhouse where plants defy decay, and a place of worship rising on the edge of the excavation site.
The project reflects on the impact of industrial transformation on both physical and emotional landscapes. Families who spent decades building their lives in these villages leave behind not only homes but also histories and identities. What does it mean to stay when everything else moves on? How much is a place worth when human rights are at stake?
By juxtaposing surreal, almost cinematic scenes of deserted streets with intimate portraits of those who remain, the project questions the boundaries between past and future, loss and possibility. It highlights the resilience of people who, even as the ground shifts beneath them, continue to shape their surroundings.
Amid this, the surreal environment offers no clear answers—an ambiguous reality where the familiar becomes strange and the future remains uncertain. In these in-between spaces, where uncertainty reigns, hope and belief take root. And at the edge, light still burns.
Titel: where to go
A map of the old villages and vigil stations on the kitchen table of Schwalbenhof in Berverath.
Titel: Growth
A flower grows out of a garden fence. what happens when we create space for growth within structures?
Titel: Goats in between
A view from Schwalbenhof across the surrounding fields, where the animals of the sanctuary have found a home on land once used for agriculture
Titel: expeditions
Ole, master carpenter and part of Schwalbenhof, on a walk. For him, choosing a place with enough room for change and the possibility to actively shape it is a conscious decision.
Titel: One Way
The road leading out of the village now ends in a dead end—less than 300 meters away begins the edge of the excavation site, which is projected to become the largest inland lake in Europe in the coming decades. Will future generations say it has always been this beautiful?
Titel: Deviding Line
Between the excavation site and the village, a massive wall stands - a silver surface with a red border, rising from the field and cutting into the landscape as if digitally inserted. Who is being separated from what here?
Titel: Against all odds
Elisa on her way to the chicken coop—a private trailer community, once bustling during the climate protests in Lützerath, now home to four people. "When the fights were fought, everyone moved on. But we live here—this is our home." The trailer site has been targeted by arson attacks and raids, while RWE has been trying to acquire the land for years.
Titel: Idyll or hell
The picturesque view from the trailer site onto the neighboring Wanlo field. The idyll is deceptive—the stream running through the rows of trees is orange on most days, and animals avoid drinking from it.
Titel: Living on the road
Which paths will we take, and what will change? The winding road curves toward a new departure point.
Titel: the good neighbor
The residents moved out long ago, and little remains to remind us of the life that once existed here. Surreally precise trimmed hedges—RWE maintains the front gardens of the abandoned houses to keep the village looking presentable. Currently, the properties, which have stood empty and faced vandalism for over five years, are being inspected and appraised. It remains to be seen how the village will develop and whether life will return to it.
Titel: Keyenberg
Behind the facades lie backyards with closed windows. How many perspectives are we deprived of when spaces no longer offer depth?
Titel: break free from what limits you
Through the window of a storage room in an abandoned house, the view falls on an old greenhouse where plants are finding their own way to grow. By summer, the frame will no longer hold.
Titel: one last time
Henriette closes the door to her home after more than 50 years. Once surrounded by farmland, the house was where she and her husband, Franz Josef, built their life and raised their children. They have now left the village and moved into a newly built home—away from the place where their memories live, where they spent their lives, and where they would have liked to grow old. I asked if they wanted to stay, but the village’s infrastructure has long been neglected. The basement has flooded, and the place feels empty. "It’s better to start anew," she says. "None of our neighbors are here anymore—it’s become lonely in the village. We loved living here. My husband was born in this village."
Titel: windows to future
Windows are the gateway to the world. From the outside, they gleam when the sun hits them—once offering a wide and open view. Now, boundaries replace the sky, as if the outside world had been shut out.
Titel: new horizons
Two young women (who wish to remain anonymous) live with their family in one of the well-preserved houses. They came as Ukrainian refugees and have now been here for three years, residing in a home at the edge of the fields. "It’s nice here," they say. "Peaceful and quiet, though there aren’t many services—it’s pretty empty. But we’re happy." As we sit together, they offer filled dumplings. "This is how we make them back home." Just two kilometers away in Keyenberg, more than 75 people live in the sports hall of the old elementary school—in the middle of a village that also stands empty. How much should property be worth when human rights are at stake?
Titel: lights are alright
The nights in the villages feel like movie scenes—somewhere between a nostalgic home film and a horror story. What does it feel like to look out onto the streets at night and see light only in the house where you live? Streetlights line the path leading out into the darkness.
Titel: Where there is uncertainty, there is belief.
Where people do not know what will happen, hope and faith are never far away. At the edge of the excavation site stands a surreal and ever-changing place of worship—filled with Buddha statues, paintings, candelabras, and musical instruments. In the background, the lights of wind turbines flicker, but everything else is quiet. People seek peace.
Titel: No way in and no way out
Pipelines being laid precisely mark the division of the landscape—splitting forms of use and ways of living. No before, no after—an in-between state whose outcome remains uncertain.
Titel: new structures
The eye fails to grasp the end of a surreal landscape that, on a quiet Sunday, seems so peaceful—leaving room for new interpretations. Where there was once flat land, a mountain has emerged from the plain.
Titel: without a name
The town sign of Keyenberg—one of the villages already rebuilt in a new location. For years, people fought to preserve the villages, and "Old" Keyenberg was allowed to remain. What happens to places we have written off when they are preserved after all? Do places need names to exist for us?
About: the Photographer: Jara Reker processes her social and inner experiences through photography. Driven by curiosity to learn, feel, and participate, her work explores social structures, human interaction, and the pursuit of perceiving and reflecting on different perspectives through photography.
Her themes often unfold in public spaces—where people with diverse identities intersect, confront one another, or seek to avoid social interaction. She is drawn to places where invisible prejudices, obvious differences, and mutual empathy either unite or condition each other.
Reker investigates personal and social questions, opening spaces that become tangible. Always exploring her own identity, she is not a detached observer but an integral part of her photographic works. Her practice reflects, documents, and shares experiences to open dialogue and reveal hidden narratives.
Engagement with people is central to her work. Rather than fixating on personal viewpoints, she immerses herself in others' experiences to foster shared emotional resonance. Her work emerges intuitively from an impulse to make emotions and thoughts tangible through photography, reflecting her ongoing exploration of self and society.
"I experience my environment as a place where I learn through differences. Some questions don't need answers - I find it important to ask them because they feel right, because I want to share them, and because my surroundings constantly invite me to see them."