In the former German Democratic Republic (GDR), freelance work was tolerated in just a handful of professions. Reinhard Mende was one of the few who worked as a freelance photographer and his career nearly spans the life of the GDR as a state. His independence might be the reason his vast body of work remains intact. While many institutional archives were abandoned or destroyed after the fall of the Wall, private collections had a better chance of survival. One of Mende’s regular jobs was to document the Leipzig Trade Fair, at that time the crucial hub for showcasing East Germany’s industrial production and, more importantly, selling it to the West for hard currency. His work around the fair included documenting official visits, depicting the products on display, and doing reportage work on production facilities. The worker’s portraits would afterward often be used for displays at the fair (and they occasionally reappear in the background of some of his pictures). To us, portraits of workers in factories placed next to the finished product look awkward; imagine seeing a picture of a Chinese assembly line at Foxconn next to an iPhone in an Apple store. Unthinkable, as it would be immediately associated with …