The Rocket’s Red Glare is a new Solo Exhibition by visual artist Barbara Diener. It explores the life and legacy of German rocket scientist Wernher von Braun, examining the selective ways history is recorded and remembered. A Nazi engineer who later became a celebrated NASA scientist, von Braun’s story reflects the contradictions of technological progress, where innovations developed for warfare also enabled space exploration. The project considers how aspects of his past were obscured in favour of a more convenient historical narrative. Her interest in interpreting this specific moment in time comes from her own reckoning with history and her complicated German heritage surrounding World War II. For this exhibition Barbara has woven her family’s story into the work by reprinting photographs her grandfather took in 1941/42 while serving in the German Army.
Through her own photographs and archival material, Barbara connects these themes to broader questions of memory, landscape, and environmental responsibility. The landscapes featured in The Rocket’s Red Glare act as witnesses to history, carrying traces of past events, conflicts, and cultural change.
Barbara’s recent interest in Mixed Realities extends the project’s exploration of fact and fiction, challenging conventional approaches to documentary photography and creating new connections between the physical world and constructed narratives.