Toby Binder

Concept

»If I had been born at the top of my street, behind the corrugated-iron border, I would have been British. Incredible to think. My whole idea of myself, the attachments made to a culture, heritage, religion, nationalism and politics are all an accident of birth. I was one street away from being born my ›enemy‹.« _Paul McVeigh, Belfast-born author_ The Peace Agreement of Northern Ireland was signed 21 years ago which means that young people of today never experienced the armed conflict, the Troubles, themselves. But Northern Ireland will have to leave the European Union due to UK’s Brexit referendum although a majority of its citizens voted to remain. While local Protestant Unionists voted to leave, Catholic Irish Nationalists wanted to remain in the EU. There is a serious concern that Brexit will threaten the Peace Agreement of 1998 that ended the violence between Protestant Unionists and Catholic Nationalists who live in homogeneous neighborhoods that are divided by walls till today.

Vita

Toby Binder, born 1977 in Esslingen, studied at the Stuttgart Academy of Art and Design. Soon he focused his photography on social, environmental and political topics. Based in Argentina and Germany he works on assignments and personal projects where he focusses on post-war and crisis situations as well as in the daily life of people.

His work is patient and intimate, without being pervasive and has been awarded internationally, e.g. with the Philip-Jones-Griffiths-Award in 2018, the Sony-World-Photo-Awards and the Nannen-Preis in 2017. The same year he received an Honorable Mention at the UNICEF Photo of the Year.

His work is published by Stern, Sueddeutsche Zeitung Magazin, die Zeit, Greenpeace Magazin, Amnesty Journal, Neue Zürcher Zeitung and others.