Exhibition by TelefonSeelsorge Deutschland e. V. on the topic of suicide prevention

In 2015, TelefonSeelsorge in Germany looked back on twenty years of providing counselling online. In 1995, the first TelefonSeelsorge centres began offering counselling and support not only over the telephone but also via email. Twenty years later, email and chat counselling had become part of the TelefonSeelsorge’s nationwide service – a reason to celebrate this small anniversary. Under the leadership of the TelefonSeelsorge branch in Münster and organised by Fotoforum Verlag in Münster, a photography competition was launched.

As an anonymous organisation, TelefonSeelsorge is not immediately tangible for many people. The idea behind the competition was to portray the theme of the Telephone Counselling Service in an imaginative, original, creative, bold or even thought-provoking way. Participants were able to submit images on four themes:

Far away – yet so close
Deep as the abyss
Leaps of joy
Night light

The images show how these themes inspired the participating photographers. The connection to the Telephone Counselling Service as a support service for people in crisis is not necessarily apparent at first glance. For those ‘in the know’, the images depict what they encounter in crisis counselling – and this is by no means always just ‘abysmal’, but can certainly also be associated with ‘leaps of joy’.

Following the competition, the exhibition ‘Words Can Become Paths’ was compiled from the 480 images submitted. It is available to the branches of TelefonSeelsorge Deutschland for their public relations work. It is in this way that the exhibition has now come to Greifswald. Twenty photographs are on display here.