Notes from “The Grave” essay, Eash’s new work on asserting Indigenous sovereignty as active protest Images that circulate widely on social media play a decisive role in shaping how social and political realities are produced, perceived, and contested. Far from being neutral, these images contribute to the formation of cultural and territorial identities, reinforcing dominant narratives while ...

Matlalcuéyetl is a dormant volcano in the state of Tlaxcala, Mexico, located within Nahua and Yuhmu territories. At its base lies a coniferous forest that has been devastated by illegal logging for decades. The ecosystem’s imbalance and rising temperatures have led to an increase in the population of the bark beetle (“Dendroctonus mexicanus”), which causes trees to die. The Ministry of the ...

This series of images is part of a larger body of work, titled “Fieldnotes on How Roots Flourish Without Soil”. Originally, the form of overlapping images was going to express some of the inherited cycles one encounters within the inner city. The trajectory of the project was redirected after a tumultuous eighteen months of loss. It transformed into an ode to the lives of gone-too-soon-friends: ...

Get to know the artists behind the Der Greif “(Not) Food Porn: From Feed to Culture” online exhibition Today is the International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste and we’re launching this months’ Pulse online exhibition “(Not) Food Porn: From Feed to Culture”. Bringing together eleven positions, we question how food is perceived across visual culture as the fetish or fascination for "food ...

In today’s visual culture, "food porn" has transformed how we perceive, desire, and celebrate what we eat. Highly stylized imagery exposes abundance, perfection, and excess, even as opposing social media trends lean into raw, unedited food aesthetics. Yet behind these mediated images lies a stark reality: massive global food waste and rapidly shifting cultural relationships to sustenance. On ...

The Uncomfortable Legacy of Representing Appalachia “In Focus” is Der Greif’s photobook review series, spotlighting our picks from the current open call for submissions and our community artists' publications. This month’s pick is Stacy Kranitz’s new photobook, "Ain’t No Grave Gonna Hold My Body Down," published by Terrible Baby and Éditions Images Vevey. If I had to say I’m from anywhere, ...

“Ecos” (Spanish for ‘echoes’) is a long-term visual project that explores the relationship between the female body and natural landscapes within a Latin American patriarchal framework. I think of violent experiences inflicted on the body as earthquakes, events that break foundations and leave deep fissures. After a rupture, new paths appear. The terrain changes, and so does the identity shaped by ...

“A Kind of Gold” is an ongoing project rooted in my own coming of age in a unified Germany. The series reflects on the experience of a generation shaped by a national culture of remembrance, now confronting its emerging limitations. At its core, memory is neither fixed nor owned; it is a conversation without end, orienting us in time and space and drawing us toward each other. What we choose to ...

A constellation of photographic perspectives on today's world as a collective narrative The PhMuseum Days international photography festival is a relatively new but vibrant hub for contemporary photography. It was initiated in Italy in 2021 by Giuseppe Oliverio as a real-life extension of the homonymous digital platform, PhMuseum. Held in Bologna, the epicentre of the “Viaggio in Italia” ...

In her photographic work, Tamara Eckhardt turns her lens toward social margins and minorities, drawn in particular to people standing at the threshold of adulthood. She has long been fascinated by how someone still coming into their own manages to raise a small child, often under circumstances that are anything but easy. For her series “Vom plötzlichen Erwachsenwerden” (“Of Suddenly Growing ...

I wake up encapsulated by darkness; the sea has pulled me in so deep that life on the surface feels like a dream. I’m completely alone; everyone I hold love for, whose presence I touched, all my life’s passersby seem unreal to me now. As if I were never there, as if I were a consciousness only, hovering above, loving them desperately while they couldn't see me. I keep pushing and struggling to ...

A conversation on the ways images act and condition our perception of reality Images that circulate widely on social media play a decisive role in shaping how social and political realities are produced, perceived, and contested. Far from being neutral, these images contribute to the formation of cultural and territorial identities, reinforcing dominant narratives while also holding the ...

The rapid expansion of digital visuality continues to redefine our everyday lives, challenging our ability to separate conventional reality from an increasingly synthetic landscape. “Front End” addresses this contemporary dilemma, functioning as a conceptual training ground that prompts a more conscious reception of the digital images that flood our screens and shape our perception. A ...

Although originating in South America, the potato is, peculiarly, deeply intertwined with German identity. Inconspicuous, misshapen, and persistently underestimated, “Solanum tuberosum” captured my fascination precisely because of these humble, unpretentious qualities. Driven by this curiosity, I embarked on an immersive, year-long photographic research project dedicated to the humble tuber: ...

Get to know the artists behind the Der Greif “Quiet Hours” online exhibition confronting loss, memory, and healing after dark Der Greif presents the launch of the online exhibition, “Quiet Hours: Nighttime and Grief”, timed in honor of National Grief Awareness Day. When the sun sets and daily noise fades, quiet hours amplify our deepest reflections. This curated collection brings together twelve ...

The quiet hours of nighttime create a poetic space lit only by artificial streetlights, soft twilight, or absolute darkness amplifying our deepest reflections. In honor of National Grief Awareness day in the US, "Quiet Hours: Nighttime & Grief" assemble twelve artists who use the canvas of nighttime to process loss, transition, and emotional survival. Grief manifests in infinite ways. Across ...

The latest photobook picks by Der Greif “In Focus” is Der Greif’s photobook review series, spotlighting our picks from the current open call for submissions and our community artists' publications. This month, the focus is on “Someday I will lose you” by Minh-An Pham and “My Mother’s Tender Script” by Asiya Al. Sharabi. Both artists turn to ordinary evidence to explore maternal bonds and ...

“Keikai keiho! Kaiho da!” My Korean grandmother was born in Japan during the Japanese colonial occupation of Korea. She would occasionally talk in her sleep in Japanese. These words occasionally surfaced in my grandmother's sleep, articulated with the precision of someone wide awake. Only recently, after coming across my grandparents’ atomic bomb victim registration certificates, did I ...

Tell me exactly what this room smelled like to you – oil, incense, candles? Cigarettes? Like gasoline in your nose and a scented candle. And the way the strangers' bodies smelled. That was the most terrifying part for me… the rest was rather pleasant. There was the taste of fresh fruit, the smell of the sea, Mother Nature, which is destructive in itself. My heroine... capable of giving so much ...

Every photograph begins with reality, yet reality is never limited to what reveals itself at first glance. It is shaped not only by what is visible, but also by perception, memory, and our ability to connect seemingly unrelated elements. What we see is always an interpretation of the world around us. The photographs in this series deliberately explore this tension. Encounters between people, ...

On the southwestern coast of Bangladesh, where the Sibsa and Kholpetua rivers meet the tides of the Bay of Bengal, water shapes every rhythm of life and every struggle within it. This fragile delta in the districts of Khulna and Satkhira stands on the frontline of the climate crisis. Rising sea levels, increasingly powerful cyclones, and saline intrusion have transformed a landscape once ...

“Maria, una historia de amor” (“Maria, a love story”) explores the unexpected bond that grew between my elderly neighbour Maria and my daughter Zélie after her birth. Maria, a 75-year-old widow, became an essential presence in our daily lives, transforming what began as a simple relationship between neighbours into a chosen family built on care, affection, and mutual support. The project ...

Guest Room is a format that fosters collaboration and sparks creative exchange. For this edition we welcome Hanmi Museum's Senior Curator Sunyoung Kim and artist Shinwook Kim, who reflect on the theme "Hyperobjects: Archipelagic Memories." "Coined by the British philosopher Timothy Morton, hyperobject describes phenomena so vast and distributed across time and space that they exceed direct ...

This project began as an investigation into my home and family, starting from an archive of photographs taken by my mother when she was my age: mostly images of animals. My parents are hoteliers, and I grew up inside the hotel they built, a place where private life and work have always overlapped. What began as a small family business gradually expanded, slowly erasing the boundary between ...