“Under the Palm Trees”
Hochschule Hannover (Germany) Licence
Ludwig Nikulski
Image from “Under the Palm Trees” project by Ludwig Nikulski
Biography
Website: https://www.ludwignikulski.de
Instagram: @ludwig_nikulski
Ludwig Nikulski (b. 1989, Greifswald, Germany) is a documentary photographer based in Hanover, Germany. He studied Fine Arts, Philosophy and Photography and is currently studying Visual Journalism and Documentary Photography in Hanover. His work on border regions and places of transition has been exhibited internationally and received several awards and grants, including three VG Bild-Kunst scholarships and the Feature Shoot Emerging Photography Award.
The project
Under the Palm Trees follows the western external borders of Ukraine – the geographical line where war and peace collide in Europe. The project focuses on the war’s margins: on landscapes that are both places of leisure and routes of escape, on border villages that become military outposts, on everyday life shaped by a distant but persistent threat.
Rooted in my grandmother’s flight in 1945, the work reflects on borders as human-made lines with real and lasting consequences that determine power and belonging. Working with an analogue large-format camera, I explore how war reshapes space beyond the battlefield – between normality and a state of exception, between security and its fragility.
Image from “Under the Palm Trees” project by Ludwig Nikulski
Image from “Under the Palm Trees” project by Ludwig Nikulski