Subterraneans

It is a fairly common experience in Germany. Once the unexploded WWII bomb is found – usually by construction workers or civil engineers on a building site – a very strict and routine protocol is put into place: a cordon is created, a team assesses the size of the bomb.

Andrew Youngson’s photographic series Subterraneans, photographed in Berlin from 2013 to 2014, deals with this omnipresent threat to civil society. His work alludes to the German word ‘Zeitbombe’, literally ‘time bomb’, which functions as a powerful metaphor in the German psyche and is part of daily parlance.

Edwina Attlee’s writing – retelling residents’ memories through an invented children’s story – captures this uncanny juxtaposition. She retells war-induced traumas using a line more commonly associated with early – and innocent – childhood memory: ‘once upon a time’.

148 x 200mm
40 pages
14 colour photographs
Text by Edwina Attlee & Marco Bohr
Published by Ansatz Press in 2026

Standard edition - £10.00
Signed edition - £11.00
Subterraneans + Enemy Action (standard edition) - £17.50
Subterraneans + Enemy Action (signed edition) - £19.50