Good Luck in Germany

For Glück auf in Deutschland, Öğrenci set out to trace the presence of first-generation so-called “guest worker” miners in the Ruhr Area, but the regional archives she consulted yielded very little. Drawing on available materials and oral histories, this 44-minute film brings together photographs, documentary montage and the artist’s off-screen narration to reimagine postwar industrial life in the Ruhr Area from the perspective of those frequently left out of official narratives and repositories of memory. Öğrenci’s use of the phrase “Glück auf” – a common way that miners wish one another a safe return after their dangerous work underground – resonates with the experiences of immigrant communities in present-day Germany faced with right-wing extremism.