(e.) Twin Gabriel reflect in their work their own personal situations within social-political reference systems. Different identity patterns are performed by the family Gabriel representing different social and cultural classes. The family system is confronted with social-political systems and is transformed into different models of life realities indicating to system immanate contradictions. Twin Gabriel is developing the basic idea of the contradiction between scientific and artistic claims, concepts and expectations and one‘s own incapacity, physical insufficiency and physiological disorders within a social political context.

In their photo series “Prosoche? (e.) Twin Gabriel stage themselves as a dropout family at the social welfare office in Neukölln. In a long corridor, the couple and their two children await the next humiliation. Their waiting reflects their desolate situation. Chicanery measures like making wait somebody are inserted intentionally from the appropriate authority defining solicitant positions and demonstrating dependency-conditions.

“Our democracy is full of talk about mixed societies – but I see a whole lot of parallel societies with which we can at best make contact?, explains Else Gabriel. The family at the welfare office is part of one of these parallel societies; and of course, work has to do with the “cliché of the forcibly proletarianised East German?, says Gabriel, who herself comes from former East Germany. “And we’re part of that — no question.?

Social strata mix less and less, since the gap between them continues to widen, so that it is extremely hard for the poorer classes to participate in public social life – they simply cannot afford it. The consequences are social isolation, loneliness, depression and lack of prospects. A parallel society is deliberately produced and formed by growing poverty, beeing a product of neoliberal politics of social difference. The increasing number of private schools being established demonstrates this development. A fair distribution of educational and work opportunities no longer exists.