Soon a hopefully safe home

I chose to dedicate my contribution for this event to a very special incident of humanity symbolised by this panorama of what looks like just a green meadow.

The year of 2015 brought a large number of refugees and migrants from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and several other unsafe areas in the world into the midst of Europe's more or less wealthy nations. Let us assume that as one of the five biggest exporters of weapons as well as military technology and equipment it is a legitimate task for the German society to offer shelter to those who had to leave their homes during the ongoing conflicts in their home countries.

During the summer countless citizens in and around Munich volunteered to help the arriving people and successfully kicked off an organisational structure that couldn't be delivered by the Bavarian government which wasn't ready, able or willing to cope with the situation in such a short time span.

Compassion, a sense of responsibility and just the awareness of the basic necessity to care for the refugees made administrative subdivisions such as districts and municipalities (i.e. the people behind these administrational and political structures) act in an unexpected pace to catch up with the flow of events: thousands of mostly exhausted and traumatised people arriving every day who need to be accomodated and taken care of in a most sensible way.

The green meadow in this panorama was covered by housing modules in just a few weeks after I shot my images. Instead of erecting tents, providing containers or huge (and noisy) air-inflated structures an ambitious decision was made to provide a more comfortable and modern blockhouse solution for over 200 inhabitants. The aim is to care for these people during the next years while helping to integrate them into our society.

For reasons of safety I chose to show only vague coordinates for this place in the Würm valley since a sad fact needs also to be mentioned: a xenophobic and anti-immigrant atmosphere in parts of the society lead to a growing number of arson attacks against foreigner's homes.
Also people who take sides with asylum seekers and refugees are sometimes denounced as "Gutmenschen", a term that is now officially considered to be the most offensive term used in 2015 throughout Germany.

Europe / Germany

Lat: 48° 7' 13.67" N
Long: 11° 26' 38.72" E

Elevation: 541 m (1775 ft)

→ maps.google.com [EXT]

Precision is: Low. Intentionally hazy, due to privacy concerns.

• Nikon D800E / Walimex f3.5 8mm

• Philopod

• Hugin 2014.0 RC4 build 4 / Pano2VR 4.5.3 / Photoshop CS6

• my bike