Portraits and still lifes of creative outsiders in our society are shown in Valentina Seidel’s new work “Eigen Brot”: she photographed sculptors, poets, painters and life artists on the fringes of general attention. The artistic collaboration with people for whom individuality and their own artistic practice are part of the expression of their personality fascinates Valentina Seidel. The photographs were taken in an intensive and processual dialogue with the people portrayed and their living environment over a period of four years. The writer Kathrin Schmidt complements Seidel’s photographs with a narrative created especially for this book: “Die Mechanik des Kniefalls”.

Valentina Seidel, *1973 in Regensburg, Germany. Lives and works in Leipzig, Germany.