Die Stadt der roten Tauben, 2021-2023
The work Die Stadt der roten Tauben (The City of Red Pigeons) shows photographs from the southern Italian city of Taranto, home to Europe's largest steelworks. The images tell the story of people in a place where steel production has assumed a seemingly inescapable omnipresence, with far-reaching social, economic and environmental consequences. Over the decades, existential economic dependencies have been established in Taranto, accompanied by a constant and persistent burden on ecosystems and a massive threat to the health of the population. Even in the face of impending climate catastrophe, the capitalist maxim seems inescapable and steel production continues.
Lukas Ratius was born in 1989 in Saarbrücken, where he also lives and works. He studied at the Hochschule der Bildenden Künste Saar until 2017 and has a diploma in communication design. He is currently part of the 2024/2025 masterclass at the Ostkreuzschule für Fotografie in Berlin. Since 2018 he has been working as a photographer on his own projects and photo books or for various clients. Since 2020 he has been part of the production company Bunkhouse Film as a director and author and realises documentary films together with Philipp Majer. In independent projects, Lukas Ratius deals with the visualisation of social, political and economic dynamics, mechanisms and structures in the form of long-term photographic observations. In the medium of photography, he creates documentary collections that categorise complex themes through narrative links. In order to expand the subjective view, interdisciplinary collaborations play an increasingly important role in his work.