{"id":45172,"date":"2025-01-10T08:30:00","date_gmt":"2025-01-10T07:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wosonst.eu\/die-stadtzeichner\/"},"modified":"2025-01-28T18:05:42","modified_gmt":"2025-01-28T17:05:42","slug":"the-urban-illustrators","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wosonst.eu\/en\/the-urban-illustrators\/","title":{"rendered":"The urban illustrators"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Christina Laube and Mehrdad Zaeri storytellers, each with their own way. She uses words, photographs and paintings, while he works with drawings and illustrations. Together, as the Duo Sourati, they create delicate, unpretentious works full of emotion. These can be found on beer mats or on the walls of buildings all over the world.<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

1943\u2013Anna, a young Ukrainian forced labourer, works in the fields around the village, in which Helga has sought refuge with her mother to escape the bombs in their hometown. Anna and Helga become friends and dance together through dark times. Until Anna died in an air raid. A girl whose life left no traces. Neither in her homeland nor in Germany. Who only continues to exist in memories. In Helga\u2019s memories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Christina Laube and Mehrdad Zaeri have turned Helga\u2019s memory of Anna into a graphic novel.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

There is Elfriede, 17 years old. Who finds refuge with her family in the Ochsenpferchbunker air-raid shelter in the Mannheim district of Neckarstadt-West. And who brings tea to the soldiers who are on guard. She talks to one of them for a little longer. They laugh and flirt with each other\u2014until planes flew overhead. Elfriede managed to get to safety, but the young soldier died. She never knew his name, but still remembers his eyes. And she has done so for over 80 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The artist duo standing in front of the mural that shows the unknown soldier\u2026<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Christina Laube and Mehrdad Zaeri have preserved both stories. The memory of Anna as remembered by Helga Neumeyer from Frankenthal was published in a graphic novel<\/a> in 2024. Elfriede\u2019s encounter with the young soldier was illustrated on concrete walls inside the same bunker where she found shelter back then. The bunker hosts the MARCHIVUM <\/a>and safeguards some of the history of the city of Mannheim. The soldier is standing there on a landing, looking down the stairway, at Elfriede, who is now white-haired and holds a teapot in her hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2026 taking a look into the past together.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Christina and Mehrdad have been working as the Duo Sourati since 2016; \u201cat least officially,\u201d says Christina. They have been working together ever since they became a couple. \u201cWe have always exchanged ideas about our art and advised each other,\u201d she adds. \u201cI could never keep my mouth shut when I watched him draw.\u201d Mehrdad agrees: \u201cShe would say, \u2018it needs some red!\u2019 And I\u2019m shocked thinking, \u2018she\u2019s right!\u2019\u201d And since his wife often finds it difficult to make decisions, he often advises her on the selection of images.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

The Freiheitstesterin mural kicked off their public engagements as a duo. It was back in 2016 that a team from the Alte Feuerwache cultural centre in Mannheim asked Mehrdad if he was interested in designing a fa\u00e7ade for the Stadt.Wand.Kunst<\/a><\/em> project. He wasn\u2019t. The task seemed giant, the thought of designing an entire wall of a building too daunting. \u201cAnd I had never even sprayed graffiti in my life!\u201d But when he told his wife about the request, she was immediately enthusiastic. \u201cLet\u2019s do it together,\u201d she suggested. They only had one condition: They wanted to paint on a wall that would disappear later. \u201cWe didn\u2019t want to be ashamed of the wall for the rest of our lives if it went wrong.\u201d But the Freiheitstesterin mural with its birds proved to be an extremely successful test, and it was hard to say goodbye, when the building in block B6 was actually torn down two years later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I really enjoyed the work at the MARCHIVUM. Delving so deeply into the memory of a city was a wonderful experience. <\/p>\nChristina Laube<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Some of the birds managed to escape the painting and now point the way across fa\u00e7ades from block B6 to block H5. This is where the couple, then officially known as the Duo Sourati, designed their second wall. It is called Abschied und Neubeginn (farewell and new beginning) and shows a woman with a suitcase in her hand, a cat on her head and a tree in her rucksack\u2014ready to put down new roots far away from their home. \u201cWe painted it for all migrants living in the city; and for all the people, who want to start a new life at the Central Institute of Mental Health located behind it,\u201d Mehrdad explains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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