Jörg Brüggemann: Tres Viajes
In Tres Viajes (Three Journeys), German photographer Jörg Brüggemann, director of the Ostkreuz School of Photography in Berlin, explores Chile through three interconnected bodies of work that examine the complex relationships between people, memory, place, and distance.
The first series, Mi madre tiene novio (My Mother Has a Boyfriend, 2018), originates from a personal quest inspired by a dream. Ten years after his mother’s death, Brüggemann set out to follow a series of signs that appeared to him during sleep. Beginning in Chile and continuing across South America, the journey eventually led back to the place where he first learned of her passing. The resulting photographs reconstruct fragments of the dream, reflecting on loss, remembrance, and the enduring bond between mother and son.
Created one year later, El derecho de vivir en paz (The Right to Live in Peace, 2019) presents a very different Chile. Returning to the country during a period of intense social unrest, Brüggemann encountered a society shaken by widespread protests against political inequality and systemic injustice. The series offers an immersive and visceral account of a historic uprising, capturing the tension, violence, and collective energy that transformed the streets.
The final chapter, Agua que no has de beber (2022), follows the lives of a woman and a man separated by vast geographical distances: she lives on the Chilean coast, while he resides in the mountains. More contemplative in tone, the series evokes the strength of Chile’s natural landscape and the invisible connections that persist between individuals despite physical separation.
An accompanying text by Jörg Brüggemann, translated into French, English, Spanish, and German, brings together the three projects and concludes the book.
About the Author
Jörg Brüggemann (born 1979, Herne, Germany) lives and works in Berlin.
After completing his studies in photography under Professor Peter Bialobrzeski at the University of the Arts in Bremen in 2008, Brüggemann gained international recognition with Same Same But Different, a project exploring backpacker culture across South Asia. Since then, he has worked as a freelance photographer and, in 2009, joined the renowned OSTKREUZ Photographers’ Agency.
His first monograph, Metalheads: The Global Brotherhood, was published by Gestalten in 2012 and accompanied by a solo exhibition at Gestalten Space in Berlin. Throughout his career, Brüggemann has developed long term documentary projects investigating identity, subcultures, social dynamics, and contemporary forms of belonging.
His work has received numerous awards and grants, including the BFF Promotional Prize, a VG Bild Kunst Grant, an Honorable Mention at CENTER’s Project Competition, and the PDN Photo Annual Award. In 2013, together with the members of OSTKREUZ, he was awarded the Konrad Wolf Prize in recognition of the collective’s contribution to contemporary photography.
