My name is Bernd Spyra (中文名字叫徐辨德), I’m a sinologist and photographer currently living and working in Hamburg, Germany. Here I carry out a DFG-funded postdoc project on the reception of Chinese popular prints (“nianhua”) in a transnational ethnological or folkloristic field during the first half of the 20th century. Broadly speaking, my research interests are the popular visual and material culture of 19th and 20th-century China, with a special focus on photography and printing.
In addition to research, I also practice photography, the results of which I want to present on this homepage.
My pursuit of photography follows three main lines: Photography on 35mm film which I use for day-to-day documentation of scenes, situations and characters I encounter, as well as family photography. For more concept-driven projects I don’t shy away from using digital cameras, which I also use to digitize my hand-developed films, resulting in a hybrid process. Finally, to give a material shape to my photographic output, besides organizing exhibitions of my photos, I regularly publish zines under the title reflex, which are available at Hamburg’s nachladen.
A list of my more specific, topical (exhibition-)projects is given below, as well as in the menu of this homepage.
Exhibitions/Publications:
- “postchristmas forever”, November 2025 – January 2026
at K34 Galerie, Kiel. Zine by Sternstunden des Kapitalismus.
- “Zwischen Zeiten im Museum am Rothenbaum“, Oktober 2025 – April 2026,
in cooperation with MARKK, Hamburg.
- “last postchristmas“, December 2023
at the Nachladen in Sternstraße 17, Hamburg.
- “postchristmas again”, December 2022
at the Nachladen in Sternstraße 17, Hamburg.
- From Pebbles to Boulders. Norderstedt: BoD, 2021.
96 Photos of Small-Town Japan. Self-published.
- “Deutschland geht es gut. Schau mal wieder rein!”, December 2020
at the Nachladen in Sternstraße 17, Hamburg.
- “postchristmas”, December 2019
at the Nachladen in Sternstraße 17, Hamburg.
- “Shanghai Civilized Park/上海市文明公园”, May 2014
at Asien-Afrika-Institut der Universität Hamburg.
In cooperation with:
Konfuzius-Institut an der Universität Hamburg e.V.
Hamburger Sinologische Gesellschaft e.V.
- “Kontraste”, September/October 2011
with Francoise Le Boulanger, at Künstlerhaus Bergedorf.
- “Wir können auch anders”, January 2010
with Dorothea Ney, at Asien-Afrika-Institut der Universität Hamburg.