800 Meter tief

As idyllic as the setting may sound, the area just two kilometers from the village is deeply threatening. Buried underground lies the decaying Asse II nuclear waste repository, the first and only so-called research repository for nuclear waste. For more than ten years, beginning in 1967, around 126,000 barrels of low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste were stored there in former mining chambers of an old shaft complex. A ticking time bomb? What will happen in the future to this facility, which is threatened by water intrusion?

To find out how local residents live with this situation, the German photographer traveled to the rural area. She quickly realized that the questions surrounding Asse hang over the place like a veil. Can the threat be pushed aside, or is it better to leave and move away? Or should one stay, firmly rooted in the place and its history?

In her portraits, Hansch shows some of the people affected. Over the course of two and a half years, she kept returning, looking closely and sensing that daily life does not revolve entirely around Asse, and yet the knowledge of it is always present. The photographer found personal, sometimes intimate moments in the everyday life of a village, within the rhythms of people's days. She listened closely and, through long interviews, learned stories that now gain visibility through a wedding dress, medals, or a Superman costume.

"I am always curious about the facets and details of life and humanity. I often ask myself questions such as: What are the decisions and circumstances that have made us who we are today?" the photographer says. "It was important to me that each scene would tell something about the person's life and reveal their hobbies, fears, hopes, and love."

With this work, she moves between documentary and narrative photography. Each image feels deliberately composed, like a scene in a dramaturgy that has yet to be fully deciphered. The invisible, including uncertainty itself, is given a place within the images. What cannot be directly depicted becomes palpable. And no solution has yet been found for the future of Asse - this state of suspension will continue for the people living in the surrounding area.