Artist
Lea Greub
Lea Greub was born on January 7, 1998 in Düsseldorf, lives in Berlin and works across Europe. As a photojournalist she deals with socio-cultural issues, discriminated minorities and European politics. The principle of her work is to meet people at eye level and to portray them with dignity. In doing so, she is guided by humanistic values. In recent years, she has traveled abroad a lot to work on photo reportages and multimedia projects. Her work has already been published in renowned media such as ZEIT ONLINE, SZ-Magazin, Fluter, Stern and Monopol.
The Business of Love
The photographic essay series "The Business of Love" explores the complex connection between love, money and society's expectations of relationships. The work explores how the pursuit of love, or the desire to give value to relationships, entices people to spend significant sums of money. The visual narrative unfolds at various locations and events, including the "TrauDich" wedding fair in Berlin, speed dating events, single date trips and the "Matchmaker" festival in Lisdoonvarna, Ireland. I also want to tell personal stories, for example of people who place newspaper ads or pay for love oracles. At the same time, I want to highlight the other side - those who earn their income from love, such as singles brokers or dating app operators. The photo series avoids stigmatizing the participants and instead focuses on the longings and fears that people experience in the context of their search for love.
The aim of the project is to give viewers an insight into the world of love as a commercial commodity. At the same time, the images are intended to encourage critical reflection on the role of money and the media in shaping our ideas of love.
Donja Nasseri explores museum spaces and liberates secured objects from display cases by taking 3D scans of them. For her project, she will focus on the example of the figure of the ancient Egyptian king Tutankhamun, addressing questions of reparation and appropriation in the context of the restitution debate.
Malte Uchtmann, will use AI to work on an ‘Atlas of Impossibilities’, reflecting on the construction of knowledge through images. He investigates the visual transformation of assumptions, policies and worldviews into knowledge within encyclopaedias across different historical periods and geographical regions.
Verdiana Albano explores her own fragmented and mystery-laden Afro-European history in a photographic process that moves between staging and documentation. Employing the Stasi files belonging to her parents, alongside personal and institutional image archives, she delves into the implications of being born within the framework of the erstwhile German Democratic Republic (GDR).
Agata Szymanska-Medina scrutinises the contemporary challenge of a global freshwater crisis unfolding in Chile through her photographic work – a crisis which poses a threat to humanity at large. Employing a nuanced narrative approach in her documentary photography, incorporating texts, archival material, video and sound, the photographer unveils the actors entangled in this conflict and the motivations driving them.
Through a synthesis of documentation, essay, and portraiture, Lea Greub delves into the intricate dynamics of the ‘business of love’. Her exploration navigates the interplay between love, financial considerations and societal expectations within relationships, particularly in venues like wedding fairs and single-date trips, where these connections are both forged and exhibited.