FLORIAN HETZ

Name: Florian Hetz
Birthplace: Frankfurt, Germany
Home: Berlin, Germany
Discipline: Photography

What is your story?

In 2007, I spent several weeks in hospital with severe encephalitis. One of the side effects was losing parts of my memory, which was pretty frightening. To fight memory loss, I started to take photos of my daily life with a little digital point-and-shoot camera. The photos worked like a diary, I could remember things with them. They were also as private as a diary. 2007 was the year the iPhone was released and the world was not yet sharing every bit of their life online. For many years, I took those photos for myself - not religiously, but steadily. In 2015, I posted one of them on Tumblr and the image went viral within a short time. The same thing happened with two other photos of mine. It was interesting to see that other people appreciated my way of seeing things, but also a bit weird because it was about my private life. I decided to buy a better camera and a simple light, in order to create pictures that were based on the imagery in my head. In the beginning, I drew the photos that I wanted to take, and then, I found people that were willing to sit for me and let me try things out. I pretty much knew what I wanted and needed to find a way to translate that into photography.

Which topics does your work focus on?

The main topics of my work have been memories, identity or the lack of it, bodies and bodies as objects, sexuality and intimacy. At the moment, I am very interested in how we see ourselves in a time when everything is recorded. What happens if our self-perception doesn't match the way we want to be seen and the way others see ourselves? How much of our online personality becomes part of us?

How do you de!ne your artistic search and practice in three words?

Curiosity, introspection, observation.

What poetry is your work about?

I have always been interested in the idea of timelessness. I have never been very much interested in trends. I am drawn to art that still feels relevant even when you take it out of its historical time context.

What do you want to achieve?

A body of work that is as unapologetic as I am.

JEFF MUHS

ELIZABETH GLAESNER