Pas de Côté

To help manage the emotional shifts of his young companion on the road, De Ruggiero employed a tactic taught at the Seuil Association – the ‘pas de côté’ (literally meaning ‘step aside’) – to create a space for S. to process his emotions on his own while also offering support from the side and being an active listener. 

The tactic is actually rated more important for this group than learning a skill. It is employed not only to manage emotional issues on the road but also to give the adolescent something they typically lack: A listening ear. Like most of the people in the program, S. came from a background where support systems do not exist. Without people around to support you, things can quickly spiral out of control. 

“When you have to walk a long distance, it requires clear organization and careful decision-making. If you want to achieve great things in life, you need to have a clear point of where you are going. This journey showed us that finishing something holds a profoundly different weight compared to merely starting it.”

The camera: A third companion

As part of their walk, the camera became a third companion on the journey, capturing not only the moments they shared but also helping S. develop a deeper understanding of visual language. His initial connection to images came through social media, and he had little awareness of the artistic intention behind photography, but he started to grasp the purpose of photography as they went along. For example, S. came up with the idea of an image conveying his sugar cravings at the end of every day showing his hand reaching to touch honey. Through this learning process, S. began to see the beauty and meaning of images captured on their walk. 

The two companions often also spoke about the relationship between the photographer and the subject and discussed themes like consent and agency. As an individual undergoing trials, you lose ownership of your image. For S., this meant that he did not have control over his own image. A notion that seemed to mirror his situation in life.

By discussing visual language and the photographic processes with De Ruggiero, S. inadvertently evolved new skills and knowledge about photography and how to connect to others, creating a new sense of resilience.

Embracing imperfections

The project is tied to imperfections, both thematically and materially. The rawness of the photographs, characterized by deep shadows and sudden bursts of light, showcase the emotional complexities encountered while navigating harsh terrains. De Ruggiero observes these imperfections, in both the environment and emotions, reflect the authenticity of the experience, where moments of difficulty reveal the true depth of resilience. 

“At first, I was frustrated by my limited materials. It took time to recognize the beauty in imperfection—the way constraints shaped the work. Without all my gear, I had to adapt, and only in the editing process did I truly understand the fragile balance that imperfection created. The same was true for the landscapes we passed through—unpredictable light and shifting weather became essential to the narrative rather than obstacles. For me, these imperfections were reminders of who I am. I’m not an educator, nor do I want to be. I just want to be a person. And beyond that, what defines me? I am a photographer. These images are not just something I create; they are something I need in order to exist.”

Ocean, pearl, and oyster

In Anatomy of an Oyster Puig-Serra Costa uses the analogy of the creation of a pearl specifically as a way to understand and expose the many layers of shame that accumulate in connection with abuse. A pearl begins to form when a foreign element attempts to invade the oyster. Unable to expel it, the oyster gradually envelops the intruding element in the nacre, also known as mother of pearl, and the layers upon layers of nacre then gradually transform it into the pearl.

Puig-Serra Costa was first drawn by the parallels between the oyster’s defense mechanism and coping mechanisms employed by survivors of sexual abuse. In this comparison, the nacre coat that shields the pearl symbolises the stratified memory one must navigate when confronting traumatic moments. The pearl, which contains the hidden story of the oyster, becomes a metaphor for her own lived experience.

“The oyster is a closed thing, inside there is shame, shyness, and guilt. But also you see the ocean. The ocean symbolizes something that I find deeply shameful. The guilt of feeling pleasure when abused. It is super heavy and tough to speak about this. But I think it is important to discuss these experiences. It is essential for de-stigmatizing and for creating a safe space for those who have lived through similar situations.”

Reclaiming personal narrative through photography

During the creative process, Puig-Serra Costa had people around her, especially family members, who urged her to stop exploring her own history of abuse. The pressure to remain silent not only reflected the discomfort of discussing painful and intimate topics but also the taboos of familial abuse. Even with the increased discourse around abuse, inter-familial abuse is challenging to speak about and expose.

However, the resistance only motivated her more. Puig-Serra Costa felt a duty to use photography as a tool to bring visibility to something often hidden within a family. In her photography, the artist turns her personal trauma into an act of defiance against the shame and guilt that keep experiences like these hidden. It became a way of externalizing her emotions, exploring them, and reclaiming the narrative.

Connecting with fellow survivors

After the publication of the book, Puig-Serra Costa was met with support. Readers wrote to her, reaching out with their own stories. The unexpected connection with her audience proved powerful in feeling less alone in the pain but also in the effort to continue her work for creating awareness around sexual abuse.

By breaking the silence, Puig-Serra Costa has not only empowered others dealing with similar trauma but also inspired her family to confront their shared feelings of shame and guilt, creating a collective sense of strength, care, and listening. Her work’s candid yet sensitive, personal exploration of trauma and healing through storytelling fosters a unique dialogue about a difficult and delicate topic.

Creating a sanctuary for memories

Her memories of Yemen resurfaced as she encountered the physical landscapes of her distant home. Before returning, the idea of disturbing memories never crossed her mind; her thoughts of home were romantic, peaceful, and nostalgic. However, upon landing in Yemen, she was confronted with a reality that felt both familiar and distant.

The disturbance brought a new noise to the peace and stillness that once characterized her memoryscape. This noise vitalized her to dig deeper into her family archive, to create further noise and disturbance. In doing so, she discovered loud and powerful emotions in response to her family archives. Here, grief was not sorrowful but became a recognition of what had been lost ​​and grieved for the memories she had once imagined.

“It is my own space where fragments of the past can coexist with the present without fear or judgment or uncertainty. It’s a place where I can revisit memories, reshape them, and reinterpret with them. The texts are deeply fictional, so who’s to say that I’m wrong? This space manifests through the layering of mediums where I can tackle it from different angles. It involves moments of pause where I can allow myself to sit alone with the discomfort or the beauty of memory.”

The plasticity of memories

Faroq’s project builds an intergenerational dialogue between her mother, herself, and the women who exist within the family archive, creating a layered and multifaceted concept of home. Through her mother’s stories, shared against the backdrop of conflict, and the visual traces of women captured in archival photographs, Faroq reflects on the complexities of memory, belonging, and transformation. This dialogue reveals the tension between the homeland she remembers and the one that exists today, exploring how personal and collective histories intersect. Within this narrative lies an imagined homeland, not fixed in geography but shaped by emotions, memory, and the fragmented lives of the women who came before her. Faroq questions how the next generation might interpret and carry forward these stories.

She thus uncovers the evolving nature of memory. It is not static; it can be warped and rewritten over time. She moves between outsider and insider roles, past and present, bridging two generations and narratives, merging these lenses to envision a future filled with love, grief, and transformation.

“I do feel, at some point, that my son will receive nostalgia, closeness, and joy passed on from me. I do believe in resilience as well, it’s not always the sad things. It really allows for continuity, healing, and even in the face of exile loss. These relationships, starting from my mother’s archive, to my present, to creating new memories for my child, are really about preservation and presenting memory not as a dark space, but also colorful and complex. They are windows to interpret. They are for making new memories, and even for manipulating memories. That’s what I think I’m doing at this phase of the project.”

Starting with a question

What happens when we disturb the memories we have left behind? Ultimately, Faroq’s project seeks to preserve and explore the layered complexities of memory. Her work intertwines personal perspectives with Yemen’s rich character, humanity, and contradictions, revealing the delicate interplay between resilience and loss. By bridging the individual and the collective, Imagine Me Like a Country of Love invites viewers to question preconceived narratives about Yemen and reflect on the broader emotional landscapes of belonging and transformation. The project becomes a space for dialogue – one that fosters empathy, encourages recovery, and challenges surface-level understandings of a place often defined by conflict.

Expanding the photographic tool box

For this series, Piepke and his mother travelled to France to visit some of the sites which his great-grandfather had sent letters from. While he has typically practiced a more stringent, straightforward visual language stemming from the documentary tradition, this project required more abstraction to reflect on its personal nature. This approach allowed him to broaden his emotional photographic palette and communicate through self-portraiture of his mother and him.

While reading the letters, Piepke was surprised by the banalities. The weather, food, clothes, and the continuous questions about the family back home. While visiting Somme in France, where his great-grandfather had fought, Piepke found that the homemade butter on his breakfast table echoed the homemade butter his great-grandfather had always been thankful to receive from family. These works had a certain site-specific quality, with the echoes and connections feeling especially powerful when returning to the same place his great-grandfather had been.

Revisiting the family archive

The use of family archival materials also involved professional translations of the century-old cursive letters. There was some challenge to working with these random bits and pieces from over a century ago, but the distance between the present and the past seemed to diminish for Piepke when holding the letters in his hands. Stories that no one ever imagined would be read or seen a century ago sprung to life and turned into a complex web of emotions interweaving home, family, nation, identity, and self.

“To me, my great-grandfather was at first just a person from history, but while engaging in this project he became more of a present figure and family member. Reading the letters for the first time was like hearing his voice. That is why the project is called ‘The Shape of F.S.’ because at the beginning it was just a shape, and while dealing with it got more explicit. Now, I talk much more with my mother about her childhood and how she grew up. It has made me understand the here and now much better.”

Beyond the decisive moment of photojournalism

When documenting the past, Piepke takes on a more speculative approach, focusing on what the site was, is, and will become. Unlike photojournalism, which seeks to capture a decisive moment, documenting history involves engaging with a landscape that has already passed. The remnants like mossed-over metal scraps and shards are traces of a decisive moment that happened a century ago yet still remains engraved.

In today’s world, where conflict rages on, we can turn to speculative documentary photography, which not only allows us to witness the moment depicted but also imagine the moment as it was and will be. Piepke’s work reflects on how current landscapes of conflict will look and be remembered a century from now. He hopes his work can spark a conversation on knowing your family history and the responsibilities that may come with it.

Tableaus and Bartz’s moments of contemplation

With a background in cinematography, Gil Bartz’s photographs emanate something cinematic and documentary at the same time. He uses tableaus as a way to communicate clarity, structure, situational depth, and compose a larger narrative for his projects. The result is vivid, impactful images embedded with moments of pause or contemplation that not only present the viewer with a moment to ponder on the situation taking place in the image, but also offer a refreshing twist on how to document and bring the nuances of this complex phenomenon into the light.

Climate literacy – showing a way forward in the time of crisis

Fragments of Climate Change affirms the importance of combining documentative and journalistic practices regarding climate literacy. In documenting Germany’s nuanced relationship to climate change, Bartz occupies the unique position as both observer and storyteller. Although his work aims to inspire action and change, he remains a documentative figure. In some instances, if he were to take on an activist role, he may face arrest alongside the activists. Maintaining a distinction from the position of an activist is to ensure that the work done by activists, scientists, farmers, and more is known and not glazed over or forgotten in the media.

“Documentary photos show facts, but they are just a small part of creating a change. The main goal is to convince the viewer, like the society, that the photo shows a different reality than they might have believed. This can encourage new actions and hopefully lead to real change. I’m just a small part of the whole process.”

What is your mark in the story about climate change?

In a global context, the series also reflects on German society’s role as end-consumers, not always directly exploited by green colonialism. As Bartz solely documents Germany he also questions the everyday fragments happening across the world that are unseen. Using his photos to provoke thought, Bartz seeks to document not only the visible effects of climate change happening in his local community but also the choices of how to navigate through this crisis. What is your mark in the story about climate change, his photographs seem to ask.

A question he has also asked himself. His turn from cinematography was specifically based on its imprint on the climate. The adaptability, frugality, and personal agency one can develop in a photographic project compared to working on cinematic projects where you may need teams of people, equipment, money, and extensive time for coordination made the decision clear to him.

For Bartz it is thus a choice to document, like it is a choice to become an activist, scientist, or farmer. Fragments of Climate Change allows Bartz to be part of shaping a collective memory on what it means to be alive in Germany in the time of the climate crisis and how we all can and should take agency in trying to minimise its repercussions.

Generational bridges

Documenting everyday moments, Ghanbari realized there was a gap between her own generation and the generations that came before her. This sparked a second chapter focusing on individuals and their relationships with their mothers. Some participants were friends or family, as building the trust needed to gain access to such a private aspect of life proved to be challenging. They chose to contribute because they felt it was important to express how societal and familial expectations for women in Iran have shaped their lives. As the women shared their experiences with Ghanbari, their words carried deep responsibility and weight as they described their relationship with their mothers, fathers, siblings, community, and nation, as well as their hopes and dreams. The collaborative approach allows the vulnerability and resilience in their stories to build a collective narrative on contemporary Iranian womanhood, moving past sedentary standards.

Woman, Life, Freedom

The third chapter of Zanan delves into the impact of the Woman, Life, Freedom movement on Iranian women, particularly how it intersects with emigration. It builds on the themes explored in the previous chapters, examining the evolving cultural identity of young Iranian women as they move away from their families, homeland, and many of the traditions that shaped them. The third chapter includes two set of images: One set consists of empty frames with sounds of protests, the second of portraits of women who are now in process of seeking opportunities abroad.

The emotional and political realities of Iranians are navigated through sound recordings of the protests as a means of documenting the resistance while avoiding the risks of arrest and censorship. The photographic portraits in this chapter depict, among others, the dreams and challenges of women, who once focused on hope for change during the uprising, and now struggle with the realities of emigration. For those unable or unwilling to leave, resistance continues in new forms, keeping the spirit of the ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ movement alive amid ongoing struggles against restrictive policies. One portrait captures the duality of experiences by featuring two sisters embracing—one departing for Germany while the other remains behind, clinging to hope.

“The ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ movement is not only about bridging gaps between women inside Iran, but it also bridges the gap between people across the country. It is bringing them closer together to create a connection between all of Iran which leads to understanding each other better and to having a different dialogue on what it means to be a woman in Iran today. Mothers started to have this voice after losing their daughters, sons, and children and they’ve continued their journey and become more politically active.”

Being seen and heard

As more women begin the process of seeking opportunities abroad, they also persist in finding innovative ways to protest for their rights, keeping the flames of the movement alive. The movement is a global symbol of the fight for women’s rights, equality, bodily autonomy, and a call for international solidarity. The final chapter of Zanan begins with an immersive soundscape – a deliberate shift in medium to document the Woman, Life, Freedom protests as a pivotal moment for women’s lives, especially since using photography was not safe.

Sound allowed Ghanbari to continue recording the people’s resistance without becoming compromised through arrest and censorship. Unlike photography, where one can simply close one’s eyes, sound cannot be unseen, making it much more difficult to block it out. As you are surrounded by the sound of protest, the emotions and power behind their voices cannot be denied. Most importantly, Ghanbari wants to shed light on building an empathetic understanding of Iranian life that cannot be solely grasped by reading, watching the news, or social media.

Weaving to reclaim bodily agency

Having an embodied approach to weaving photographic works has always been an integral element in Zhou’s works. The body holds memories and these memories are embedded into the weaving as they create each strand, focused on interwoven layers and layers of visible to invisible voices. A push and pull of reclaiming agency and simultaneously erasing oneself to maintain it. 

Zhou plays with the idea from Mandarin linguistics of describing the body as a space of inscription and their own body as a producer of the narrative. Instead of the body being inscribed upon, they turn it on its head, taking back the language prescribed for them and weaving their own bodily language. 

“My artistic inquiry becomes, then, a healing journey. The time spent working with and through my body is restorative, it heals my wounds. Creating artworks is, for me, a way of writing; a process that leaves new kinds of traces in my body. I now decide what I do and do not allow to leave a mark on me; and that is, for me, a token of resistance.”

The binary quality of jacquard weaving

The medium pushes the boundaries of photography through jacquard weaving, which parallels the function of early computers by translating binary code into black-and-white pixels. The monochromatic palette creates a timeless quality, blurring the line between past and present. 

Faces in the images fade into ambiguity, while the visible traces of yarn introduce a “glitching” effect—hinting at the movement and labor behind the weaving process. This glitching echoes the internal questioning one experiences when reflecting on a past self. When installed, the works reveal both sides of the weave, with one presenting a photographic “negative.” Despite its textile form, the practice remains deeply rooted in photography.

Bypassing censorship through ‘undercover’ images 

Looking back at Zhou’s personal archive where they had participated in body discipline practices, Zhou could identify themself in some images, while in others they remained invisible. However, in every image, they knew they were part of the group. This retrospection made them question the reason for participating and led to developing a larger dialogue on social conditioning, culture, and how identity is formed in this collective context. 

In the same vein, the agency of the other figures in the images was also considered and camouflaged by the textiles. The use of weaving allowed Zhou to bypass censorship that could be applied if they had chosen more typical digital photographic methods. Weaving became both a photographic tool and a physical and emotional boundary for Zhou against surveillance.

“Another perspective too is self-censorship and I always try to hide my face and also hide other people’s faces in the work. In the design process of weaving files, I can choose how I want people’s faces to be visible and in which ways we can make them unrecognizable.

I hope these objects I have produced, my body of work, can survive the all-encompassing ban. That they can function as those first few bricks we will use to rebuild, that their illegibility can help carry on our message, and serve as evidence. Their existence is a symbol; a symbol of my experience, of our shared experience. What is imperative is to know these exist, to acknowledge something happened and shall not be forgotten; that, even if in silence, there was resistance.“