Res­cue the Fire

Berlin, 1993. Photographer and artist, Jürgen Baldiga, battles HIV. In the 1990s, the AIDS epidemic reached its climax, to which no one was prepared. Infected bodies and their stories diminish, erasing their existence. Through the death of his friends and subsequently his own, Baldiga becomes the chronicler of his time: "I am taking a picture. I photograph the world. I exist." Identity and history disappear without the persistence of memory. Until the final days of his life, Jürgen documents the exodus that seizes him. Rettet das Feuer (Rescue the Fire) directs the gaze to a piece of West Berlin history and the voices of the collective memory.