Welcome
Undine Groeger is an interdisciplinary artist who spent the first ten years of her life in the German Democratic Republic. Drawing from this experience, she works with communities to inspire dialogue, catalyze social change and foster individual and collective healing.
Groeger’s background, living in the aftermath of the fall of the Iron Curtain, first led her to humanitarian work. From 2003-2013—through partnerships with non-profits and government agencies such as Doctors Without Borders and the United Nations—she engaged in rigorous social activism, such as constructing a prison clinic, implementing sanitation standards for a field hospital, addressing human trafficking and investigating torture.
On a humanitarian mission to Transnistria, Groeger was reminded of her childhood home in former East Berlin, and she began using her camera as a means of self-examination. She started to see visual storytelling as a tool to engage the public to effect real change, and she expanded her activism into an art practice. In 2014, through the support of myriad private and public institutions, she founded Within Our Walls and Beyond (WOWB), which includes her traveling photography exhibition, community events and a growing archive of testimonials.
In 2017, after years of working as a self-taught photographer, Groeger returned to school to study in the New Media Narrative program at the International Center of Photography thanks to the ICP Director's scholarship. There she expanded her community and created Walls; Within and With(Out), the multimedia documentary project featured in the group show Signal Crossings.
Undine’s mother's journey with breast cancer and the process of photographing her inspired her second long-form documentary project on
breast cancer warriors, which she launched thanks to a grant from the International Center of Photography and the Rita and Alex Hillman
Foundation. This project is ongoing since 2019.
Groeger earned three Master’s degrees from Swiss, German and French universities in Humanitarian Action, International Management and East European Studies. She facilitates workshops in English, French and German. She has lived and worked on three continents and is currently based in New York City where she teaches at an IB-accredited international school.