Hotel of Eternal Light

© Karolina Spolniewski - Image from the Hotel of Eternal Light photography project © Karolina Spolniewski - Image from the Hotel of Eternal Light photography project © Karolina Spolniewski - Electric Power station for the hidden prison hospital building. View all images ↓
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  • Dates
    2015 - 2024
  • Author
  • Topics Archive, Documentary, Social Issues, War & Conflicts
  • Location Berlin, Germany
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We associate light with hope. But what if it became domination? The work examines the weaponized use of light in a former Berlin Stasi prison, ironically dubbed 'Hotel of Eternal Light' where forms of light were used to break the prisoners psyche.

Hotel of Eternal Light is a researched-based multimedia visual investigation into the field of freedom and totalitarian systems during the recent history of Europe - using the example of Communist abuse of power by the secret intelligence service in the former GDR- known as Stasi. The project was shot in the former hidden Stasi prison in Berlin-Hohenschönhausen, symbol of political persecution and oppression.

In the light of current global political events of totalitarian exercise of power, this work aims to address, what our freedom actually consists of in severe times of loneliness and how much potential the inner urge for it reveals, in the face of a superior ideology.

The focus is upon the sense of light, used perniciously by the prison regime as a form of control, torture and communication code. Inmates described the prison ironically as ‘Hotel of Eternal Light‘ not knowing where they have been detained, acknowledging the constant artificial illumination that was designed to suspend time. Here is a different side to what lightusually symbolises - hope, redemption, being saved. No one was meant to be reformed in this prison.

The goal was the annihilation of the inner self. Various methods of white torture and light were used to break the prisoners psyche: such as light corridors, X-Rays, flashing lights, radiography tracking, blinding spotlight, black isolation etc.

This radical experience in isolation and in loneliness as described by Hannah Arendt in ‚Origins of Totalitarianism‘ (1951), makes us unable to experience the world, unable to make sense of reality, unable to trust our own sense of the self. It prepares the individual for totalitarian domination.

Approaching the subject matter from a distinct representation of aesthetics to contrast its inherent ugliness and malformation. Based Sigmund Freuds essay ‚The Uncanny‘ (1919), it refers to aesthetics as the theory of qualities of feeling, rather than the theory of beauty.

Apart from documenting photographs taken at the prison and its secret hospital, the project employs other media such as scans of traces, photographs of objects belonging to inmates, experimental X-Rays scans, portraits of former inmates, archival images , audio & video interviews, 8-hour still videos and video installations (see link: Link: https://vimeo.com/278953576?share=copy&fl=sv&fe=ci ).

In Hotel of Eternal Light, light becomes an architecture of power. As a result of its distinctive photographic approach, the project was awarded 1st Prize at the BlowUp Press Book Award 2022. Its first book edition debuted at the Polycopies during Paris Photo in November 2024.

In December, the publication was recognized with 2nd place in the Top 10+ Photobooks 2024 by 1000 Words Magazine. The offset edition was released in April 2025.

© Karolina Spolniewski - Image from the Hotel of Eternal Light photography project
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Vandalized portrait of Gorbatschev, found in the prisons secret hospital, eyes scratched out. Swastika on forehead. Found in the former prisons secret hospital.

© Karolina Spolniewski - Image from the Hotel of Eternal Light photography project
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Re-enacted suicide attempt of one prisoner. All attempts of misbehaving were recreated by the Stasi officers and put into a so-called catalogue of what to expect from the "criminals".

© Karolina Spolniewski - Electric Power station for the hidden prison hospital building.
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Electric Power station for the hidden prison hospital building.

© Karolina Spolniewski - Image from the Hotel of Eternal Light photography project
© Karolina Spolniewski - Image from the Hotel of Eternal Light photography project
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Corridor lamp. Red light meant a prisoner is being transferred to an interrogation. No other human being was allowed to appear on the way simultaneously in order to create an atmosphere of an empty deaf building. Lamp in prison. Red signified a special code between the sStasi employees.

© Karolina Spolniewski - Image from the Hotel of Eternal Light photography project
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Interrogation office with open curtains, which during interrogations were never open. Restricting the inmates to look outside into any distance, any future. When asked about what they were longing for, the majority of inmates replied: the sun and the horizon. The prison was designed in order to prevent the inmates to look further than 3 meters. No windows in the cells, only glasbricks.

© Karolina Spolniewski - Image from the Hotel of Eternal Light photography project
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Scan of headphones used by the MfS/ secret police as part of their extensive surveillance network. It is estimated that the Stasi bugged around 40.000 apartments/ offices.

© Karolina Spolniewski - Screen in the X-Ray monitoring room at hidden Stasi hospital.
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Screen in the X-Ray monitoring room at hidden Stasi hospital.

© Karolina Spolniewski - Image from the Hotel of Eternal Light photography project
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"I'm not a victim, I'm a perpetrator. A career criminal you could say. And I run after the sun." Mike F., 57 years old, former prisoner at Berlin-Hohenschönhausen. Portrait shot outside his home. Time spent in prison 6 years in total.

© Karolina Spolniewski - Image from the Hotel of Eternal Light photography project
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Embroidery made in the prison by a former inmate, longing for home. Layered on top of a X-Ray of a former inmate, taken during imprisonment. X-Ray montage symbolizing Home, what's "coming straight from the heart".

© Karolina Spolniewski - Image from the Hotel of Eternal Light photography project
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Heating pipes in the oldest part of the prison the so called „U-boot“ / submarine, devoid of windows and daylight. The single source of warmth.

© Karolina Spolniewski - Image from the Hotel of Eternal Light photography project
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The continuation of the Berlin Wall through the river Teltow in Berlin. After a preparation of 10 months in going to the swimming pool, one of my time-witnesses swam through the Teltow canal, managed to pass through the wall and was rescued at the shore in West-Germany collapsing.

© Karolina Spolniewski - Empty safe in a former interrogation room. No-one is pulling the strings anymore.
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Empty safe in a former interrogation room. No-one is pulling the strings anymore.

© Karolina Spolniewski - Image from the Hotel of Eternal Light photography project
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No one in the prison or the hospital had access to direct sunlight, which as well was a strategic element of deprivation and a method to induce a feeling of longing. The prisoners in the secret hospital were kept alive and healthy just enough to sustain the same amount of interrogation hours as their healthy fellows in the building next to them. Intimidation- and blackmailing methods kept goingon

© Karolina Spolniewski - Image from the Hotel of Eternal Light photography project
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Lamps are the leading motif in the project , as a sphere they represent the anciet symbol of the self. It represents the totality of the psyche in all its aspects: wholeness. But there was no on meant to remain whole in the prison.

© Karolina Spolniewski - Image from the Hotel of Eternal Light photography project
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One of the first meetings I had with an ex-inmate was in his former cell which had no windows. he referred to the place ironically as ‚hotel of eternal light‘ not knowing where he and his mates have been detained by the secret police, pointing to the constant artificial illumination on their cell ceilling.

© Karolina Spolniewski - Image from the Hotel of Eternal Light photography project
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"We are all children of chance" a former inmate recalls when asked about his experience of psychological torture in the prison. This image shows an experimental scan under the striplight in one of the prison cells which were put on continuously to eliminate the biorhythm of the inmates and to irritate them. The scan shows iron dice that was produced by one of the prisoners illegally inside.

© Karolina Spolniewski - Phosphoric Bath in the Stasi prison hospital for torture purposes.
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Phosphoric Bath in the Stasi prison hospital for torture purposes.

© Karolina Spolniewski - Image from the Hotel of Eternal Light photography project
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Noice cancellation room in the prisons former hospital. Entering the most secret place in the former GDR. The prison was not marked on any Berlin map during 1950-1988. Only a big white spot.

© Karolina Spolniewski - Image from the Hotel of Eternal Light photography project
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Compilation of X-Rays- experimentally scanned from inmates taken at the hidden prison hospital during imprisonment. I received over 70 x-rays from the prison hospital archive and I treated them - individually- as a proximate symbol and translation of surveillance and monitoring .

Hotel of Eternal Light by Karolina Spolniewski

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