With These Murdered Old Mountains, the Kunstverein Dresden is presenting the first exhibition in Germany by US photographer Stacy Kranitz. For over fifteen years, Kranitz has been exploring life in the Appalachian Mountains, a region in the eastern USA characterized by the decline of the coal industry.

In her work, Kranitz questions the objectivity of documentary photography. Instead of distant images, she deliberately creates subjective narratives about a region caught between ecological destruction, social identity, and economic change.

The exhibition focuses on photographs that show coal mining and its consequences, as well as the identity and cohesion of the local people. The term “extraction,” which refers to the mining of coal, can also be read as a metaphor for photographic storytelling: what is shown, and what remains hidden?

Kranitz's images address regional and global issues, including work and the environment, memory and stereotypes, and how photography influences our perspective on the world.

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This project was funded by the Kulturstiftung des Freistaates Sachsen, vom Amt für Kultur und Denkmalschutz der Landeshauptstadt Dresden, der Bauer Wrodow Stiftung, Demokratie Leben and the Ostsächsische Sparkasse Dresden.