In my leisure time series I am interested in recording the open public spaces that host or suggest leisure time. Within the frame of this series I visited Ruegen, an island in the Balitic sea. Ruegen was a favourite place of German Romantic painters like C. D. Friedrich and P. O. Runge. The reason I visited Ruegen was not the romantic characteristics of a paradise on earth that still are to be found there. Neither the fact that today it is one of the most touristic destinations in Germany, where
I could possibly find subjects for my series. The main reason was the “Colossus of Prora”, the 4,5 km long modernistic building that lies along the Prora bay near the glamorous Binz resort. It was designed by the Nazis for mass vacation by the sea and planned to accommodate 20000 vacationers. The war prevented the Nazis from completing the project and the partly finished project was used for military purposes and for leisure activities of DDR military officers.

Today the various parts of the building host a Documentation Center, a privately owned cheap phantasmagoric museum, a café restaurant and recently the biggest youth hostel in Germany. The building’s future uses are unclear because of its sensitive recent history. In these photographs of my leisure time series I present contrasting, historically charged spots of Ruegen. The paradise on earth of the Romantics, the idyllic Prora Resort of the Nazis, and the glamorously nostalgic Binz resort.

Eleni Mouzakiti