The Harvest addresses the financial industry and its rather abstract methods to generate profit. Although action of the financial industry seems decoupled from a classic and simple view on economy - producing and selling something which satisfies a demand, the industry's conduct has a huge impact on society and the international economic fabric. I worked on The Harvest in 2018/19, but the very ...

An emotional dialogue with A.I. The medium photography is broadly positioned, and many players out of a wide range of aspiration add content to a partly uniform mass of images. Now a new protagonist has entered the scene: Generative A.I., which is built around the interface between visuals and words. This is similar to a basic model for understanding we use when we look at a picture: trying to ...

Der Greif in partnership with MPB presents Kıvılcım S. Güngörün, Guest Room Scholarship winner Der Greif and MPB introduce Kıvılcım S. Güngörün, scholarship recipient from our Guest Room “Urban Exoticism", curated by Michael Grieve and Ruth Blees Luxemburg. Güngörün is a Turkish photographer whose work masterfully merges the realms of personal memory and urban narrative. An image from her ...

An exploratory meditation on the concept of intimacy in a personal and intuitive way. In this uncanny parallel universe of disastrous mating and traumatic unions, the characters’ attempts at closeness only enhance their sense of isolation. With the urge to abide by the myth of becoming “one,” the emotional and physical weight of closeness becomes cumbersome and bulky. The burden of childhood ...

I’ve often described myself as an introvert. Getting lost in my own mind is often a source of comfort and a place to recharge. In some sense, it feels like I’m also doing that creatively with my practice right now - I’m introverting, looking within. Reassembling my thoughts, and feelings, and how I express them through photography. I don't know how or what my practice will look like at the end of ...

Those who know me well would describe me as playful, yet this side of me has rarely found space in my work. Enrolling in the Master in Photography at ECAL, I knew I wanted to push my practice further - to break away from the constraints of continuity, from the self-imposed expectation that my work must always fit within a specific framework. I wanted to make space for something completely ...

PhotoVogue Festival ninth edition forms a love letter to nature The PhotoVogue Festival, the pioneering fashion photography festival that unites ethics and aesthetics, returns to Milan for its ninth edition. Taking place from March 6 to 9, 2025, at BASE Milano, this year's festival is centered around the theme “The Tree of Life: A Love Letter to Nature.” This thought-provoking theme highlights ...

After graduating, I found myself in a creative limbo. I continued working on my diploma project, which evolved into Somewhere Less Than Heaven, and I sought new ways to push my work forward. Enrolling in PH Museum’s Folio Masterclass in 2022 expanded my perspective on photography, especially in the context of the photobook. Yet, despite the structure and community, I hit a wall - a period of ...

I have always been drawn to images - glued to television screens as a child, lost in the cinematic, the painted, the pixelated. But photography didn’t call to me until much later. Before 2018, it was just a tool - an extension of memory, a way to document rather than create. When I finally picked up the camera with intention, it became something else: a conversation between thought and instinct, ...

Where do our memories go when we are not remembering them? Do they linger somewhere, just beneath the surface, waiting for the next thing to stir them back to life? Or do they dissolve entirely, falling away until something - some scent, some sound, the way light hits a certain street corner - pulls them back into form? I have often imagined memory as a place, an inner landscape shaped by the ...

The world has recently lost a valuable person. David Lynch has left a deep impression on my visual development. I remember the first film I saw by him was “Eraserhead”, I was quite young and I couldn't understand how this oppressive feeling is such a brilliant way to evoke emotions. But now I understand and appreciate it. I have a series or rather a set of images that are not connected in any ...

The cuckoo migrating bird lays its eggs in other birds' nests, so its little nestlings are raised by unknown parents. During our lives, there are several opportunities to choose a family in the form of different communities that shape our identity as a second family. We cannot choose our relatives, but blood relation is an invisible link between us. We are closer to each other, we maintain ...

Negatives and traces of familiars inform Stella McGarvey’s “Lacunary” We periodically invite our alumni – artists we have featured in the past – to share their latest work and projects with us. Stella McGarvey, a South London-based artist, works across photography, sculpture, and paper. Driven by a deep desire for connection, she infuses objects with an anthropomorphic presence, viewing them as ...

When I planned the exhibition of KOMPLEMENT, I sought to create an installation that thematically strengthens the series and helps to understand it. I also considered it important to realize a visual experience that can be enjoyed through personal presence. I created a wooden structure made of slats, which allows for a view in the middle of the space, between the two walls, thus covering up ...

“As an age of all-pervasive image making, we still do not know exactly what pictures are, what their relation to language is, how they operate on observers and on the world, how their history is to be understood, and what is to be done with or about them.” - W. J. T. Mitchell: Picture Theory We try to find the milestones of truth in the set of countless images, but we use the senses of past ...

Stand with your legs apart. Bend forward. Look back between your legs. Thank you. Now look around and take stock of what you see. The world has been stood on its head. (István Örkény: “The grotesque (a practical approach)”; translated by Judith Sollosy) In my work, I create fictitious constructions and compositions that deceive the eyes and invite the viewer to decipher them. Here, the ...

This year, I would like to focus more energy on tilt, our collective of four photographers: Tim Gassauer, Manu Gruber, Marcus Wend, and myself. We met during our studies at Ostkreuzschule für Fotografie in Berlin, where we were part of Göran Gnaudschun’s class and graduated together in May 2024. For the past year, we have come together to develop each other's work, collaborate on commissions, ...

Since I began taking photos, I’ve found that my most meaningful experiences often come during spontaneous walks. There’s a simple urge to step outside, break away from the routine of daily life, and explore with my camera in hand. I often hop on a nearby train or bus, riding until something outside the window catches my eye. When I see something interesting, I get off and wander, open to whatever ...

Strom explores the Oder River habitat through the lens of change. Spanning approximately 854 kilometers (531 miles), the Oder flows through the Czech Republic, Poland, and Germany, originating in the Sudetes Mountains and emptying into the Baltic Sea. Serving as a natural border between Poland and Germany for much of its length, the river is a vital waterway for trade and transportation. It is ...

Exploring the intersection of love and money with Lea Greub We periodically invite our alumni, artists we have featured in the past, to share their new work and projects with us. We first featured Lea Greub’s work in our Guest Room curated by Daniel Boetker-Smith and Tanvi Mishra on the theme "(make) belief" in October 2023. We discovered Greub's photographic essay series, "The Business of Love" ...

Uncanny Valley is an ongoing project that explores the contradictory relationship humans have with nature. We find ourselves deeply embedded within it, yet wildly estranged from it. This project examines the absurdity of our interactions with the natural world, where we transform it into something consumable, controllable, and ultimately disposable. We maintain the illusion of connection by ...

Lithics is an exploration into the prehistoric origins of human behaviour. Travelling through caves and quarries, forests and valleys across Europe, the work seeks traces of our shared humanity in landscapes once inhabited by Neanderthals. Central to the work is the uniquely human awareness of mortality. This awareness shapes how we live, think, and act. It manifests in our desire to transcend ...

Secret to Stirring up a Breeze is a photographic meditation that explores the intricate tapestry of urbanisation, family, and religion in Fuzhou, a south coastal city that is my hometown and a landscape of change. This project, unfolding over seven years, captures the evolution of Fuzhou through my periodic returns, which have shaped my dual perception as both insider and outsider. Through the ...