Ulaanbaatar Magazine

In September 2019 four of us went to Ulaanbaatar to work on individual photo-essays that question existing stereotypes about the Mongolian capital. Our new limited publication УЛААНБААТАР shows photo-essays whose structure and interplay tell of increasing western influences, the gap between rich and poor, the rural exodus, the construction boom and the related urbanization of Ulaanbaatar.



Photo-essays:

Hero by Arne Piepke, is a dissonant and personal look at Mongolia’s Capital, a place that at the same time repels and attracts him. How do you deal with the exotic as a foreigner? Places of human interaction, culture and history served as stages for his visual approach in order to overthink the stereotyps of Monoglia and to enable a different and unfamiliar look at the city.





On the Outskirts - Maximilian Mann
Today, 60 percent of all inhabitants of Ulaanbaatar live in the suburbs, many of them still in yurts. Poor hygienic conditions, a lack of drinking water systems and precarious medical care are characteristic of these residential areas. For Max, the yurt quarters form a transition between country and city, between nomadic and urban life.








The work State of Change by Fabian Ritter shows various scenes of the urbanization of Ulaanbaatar in September 2019: Elements from the past as well as Buddhist tradition meet the new, Western-oriented influences, which seem to be growing more and more. Influenced by numerous foreign investment funds and government measures, the capital of Mongolia resembles a huge construction site in many places: a found intermediate state, the finalization of which is abstractly
appears.

Falcons - Ingmar Björn Nolting
With the democratic awakening and the introduction of a free market economy in the early 1990s, parts of American culture found their way into the Mongolian capital. Motorcycles, which were exclusively commercial vehicles during the socialist era, became a leisure activity and a symbol of freedom and prosperity. The first motorcycle club was founded in 1994 - today there are an estimated 600 bikers.