Artist
Anna Aicher
Anna Aicher (b. 1993) is a documentary and portrait photographer from Germany. After studying photography in Berlin, she became a team member at Salzburg’s Gallery Fotohof in 2018. She is currently following a Masterclass at Ostkreuzschule, Berlin. Exploring traces of old traditions and rituals in contemporary society, most of Aicher’s projects have an auto-biographical dimension. She travels constantly between the city and the countryside, turning up stories nestled in distinct communities. Besides her personal projects, Aicher regularly works on assignments for various newspapers and magazines.
Website: www.anna-aicher.com
Like Father, Like Son
Like Father, Like Son is an old saying that, among other things, suggests a sense of conformity running from one generation to another. For me, though, there comes a point in life when a saying like this one turns into a question – as the quest for one‘s own identity begins. For an ongoing project, focused on various traditionally male-dominated activities in the countryside of southern Germany and Austria, I have been regularly visiting the region to photograph those who attend these old rituals. As I was never part of these traditions, they were always a bit of a mystery to me, and I’ve been trying to determine the boundaries of my connection to them. This collection, part of a bigger project, is my take on those traditions and rituals – that our fathers still preside over.
Returning time and again to the rural areas and subcultures of her childhood in southern Bavaria, Anna Aicher embarks on photographic examinations of the concepts of home and tradition. In projects such as Like Father, Like Son, she creates calm, concentrated images and enters into an intensive dialogue with her protagonists so that a special intimacy becomes visible.
Nominated by Sithara Pathirana, Project Manager for Triennial Expanded, Maximilian Glas explores the human encounter with nature in his project Weather Constructions. In an almost humorous way, he questions speculative processes of science by also undermining the project's own validity through the display of errors. What is special about Weather Constructions is that it is highly scientific while at the same time an experience for the senses.
Nominated by photographer and lecturer André Lützen, Altay Tuz explores the question of integration and identity in Turkish cultural clubs and cafés in Hamburg and Berlin in his project Members Only. Using his camera to gain access to these spaces, Tuz makes images of full of information, details and signs, ultimately making visible the symbiosis of tradition and the present.
Nominated by Ingo Taubhorn, Chief-Curator House of Photography/Deichtorhallen Hamburg, Simon Grunert's photographic practice is rooted in a documentary approach, but plays with its boundaries. In series including Senne 1 & 2, he often uses specific geographical settings as the basis for his stories but then adds pseudo-scientific or fictional elements, reducing his original intention of conveying a sense of place to the abstract.
Nominated by photographer and lecturer Linn Schröder, Julia Gaes is fascinated by bodies. Over several summers she accompanied burlesque performers and drag queens for her Polaroid work WIGS & GLOVES, reflecting a queer space that allows freedom beyond binary thinking worlds. With humour, eroticism, irony and tragedy, the performances in Gaes’ pictures are political and queerfeminist – subversive moments showing an incredible diversity.