Christoph Gödan, Deutschland

Für uns eine Selbstverständlichkeit: allzeit verfügbares Wasser. Wir trinken es, nutzen es beim Kochen, waschen uns damit. Dankbarkeit über diesen alltäglichen Luxus empfinden wir wohl selten. Befindet man sich aber in einer Umgebung, in der sauberes Wasser nicht einfach aus dem Wasserhahn fließt, steigt die Bedeutung dieses Lebenselixiers.

So erging es dem deutschen Fotografen Christoph Gödan in Tansania. Sah er in den frühen Morgenstunden Elenius, Athanael, Dezdel, Jasintha, Anicias, Kelvin und viele andere Kinder mit den leeren Wasserkanistern zum Kagera-Fluß marschieren, wirkten sie unbeschwert. Nach dem Auffüllen der Behälter und auf dem Rückweg plagte sie die kostbare Last. Ihre Erschöpfung hielt Gödan in eindrücklichen Porträts fest. Nicht nur sein Respekt vor der alltäglichen und klaglosen Wasserschlepperei stieg, sondern auch seine Hochachtung vor der Art der Kinder, die Strapazen ihres Daseins zu bewältigen.

Nach Angaben von UNICEF teilen Millionen Mädchen und Jungen das Schicksal von Kindern wie Elenius oder Jasintha. Weltweit haben 884 Millionen Menschen keinen Zugang zu sauberem Trinkwasser, darunter sind 125 Millionen Kinder unter fünf Jahren.

Biografie: Christoph Gödan

Born in 1963 in Southern Germany.
Christoph Gödan is specialized in portrait, feature and industrial photography for well-known magazines, customer magazines, annual reports and public relations for companies and NGOs. Since 2005 he has done several trips to Central and South Africa on various topics, like violence prevention in townships around Johannesburg or the nationwide campaign "Water for Africa" (Lions Club, Vodafone, German Red Cross and others), a three-week motorcycle trip from watering place to watering place near the border of Tanzania and Rwanda.

In a two-month-long trip through Tanzania and the Townships around Durban/South Africa in 2006 and 2007, the photographer has portrayed and interviewed more than 50 families, who are massivlye affected by AIDS & HIV. The destruction of traditional family structures by the AIDS pandemic was captured in his the work "The grand mothers". Old women were brought here in the focus, who have to educate a large number of Aids orphans in extreme poverty. Since 2007 this exhibition is touring almost without interruption through Germany and Switzerland and has been shown to over 15,000 people.

"The grand mothers" documentary was nominated in 2008 for the Unicef Photo of the Year Award. In 2010 this serie was selected on the shortlist of the Henri Nannen Prize and won First Prize at Mediaprize of German Kindernothilfe.

In spring 2011 C. Gödan will start a serie with interviews and portraits about township juveniles in and around Kapstadt, South Africa. Documenting their daily life.

Study:

• Study Visual Communication (Photography and Media) at the University of Applied Sciences in Bielefeld (1990-1996)
• Degree dissertation "The death in the present" about the war crimes in Bosnia and Croatia realized by a grant of the DAAD and contract works for the magazine "Stern".

Work:

• Numerous journeys through the war and post-war areas on the Bbalkan on behalf of magazines such as "Stern", "Greenpeace-Magazine", "Neue Zürcher Zeitung" and freelance projects. (1992-1999)
• Member of Agency Laif / Cologne since 1999