What lies behind ideologies? How are worldviews, attitudes, and political theories formed? How do they influence others? To what extent do they support power, manipulation, abuse, exclusion, and exploitation in different societies? The artists featured in this publication—including Máté Bartha,Johanna Diehl, Yves Sambu, and Ja’Tovia Gary—reveal, through their works, the significance and impact of past and present ideologies.

They demonstrate how ideological thinking manifests itself historically and today. Prominent authors contribute essays that deepen the engagement with this timely subject.

How can and do we want to see the world today? How are new perspectives generated through and within photography, by means of distortion or dissolution of everyday reality? Beyond the documentary, what visual languages do artists employ to reflect on the philosophical and existential aspects of human and material existence in our time?

Under the title Imagine Reality, the RAY 2015 Triennial of Photography presented, in a main exhibition and six partner projects, a total of 35 artists from 15 nations with their visual explorations of subjective and staged realities. These lead into a world where reality and fiction, facts and illusion are inextricably interwoven, and toward an expansion of the real. The photographic means employed are as diverse as the history of photography itself. The works on display reflect the transformation of the medium and point to the potentials of a visible world.

At the initiative of the Kulturfonds Frankfurt RheinMain, nine institutions from the region have joined forces under the banner of RAY Fotografieprojekte Frankfurt/RheinMain to showcase outstanding international works of contemporary photography and video art in the Rhine-Main region. The exhibition Making History took place at three central locations: the Frankfurter Kunstverein, the MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst Frankfurt am Main, and the MMK Zollamt.

Making History presented works that explore the staging of reality through media images. In doing so, the artists do not offer ready-made models of history; rather, they reveal very different, subjective perspectives on historical events. This publication introduces approximately 38 of the featured artists, ranging from Harun Farocki to Jeff Wall to Oliviero Toscani, and places them within a thematic context.