Maria Sturm

Artist Representation
Berlin

I was born in 1985 in Ploiești, Romania (I speak Romanian!), studied photography at the University of Applied Sciences Bielefeld, Germany and at the Rhode Island School of Design as a Fulbright and DAAD scholar. I am working on personal projects, commissions (Wall Street Journal, der Stern, NZZ Folio and ZEITmagazin) and as an educator, having taught at Rhode Island School of Design and Berlin Technische Kunsthochschule.

I’m part of the artists collective Apparat and together with a handful of friends I organize a small music festival in an old train station just outside Berlin on the border to Poland called Alte Liebe rostet nicht. My latest work “You don’t look Native to me” has won the PHmuseum Women Photographers Grant, Center Santa Fe Directors Choice Award and the Royal Photographic Society Award. It was shortlisted for PhotoLondon La Fabrica Dummy Award, Kassel Dummy Award and made the 2nd place at Unseen Dummy Award and published in British Journal of Photography, D La Repubblica, Refinery29 and Lensculture. It was exhibited in the German Consulate New York, Encontros da Imagem, at Artists Unlimited, Addis Foto Fest, Format Festival and at Aperture Foundation.

For Birds’ Sake in collaboration with my dearest Cemre Yesil was published as a photobook by La Fabrica and in How We See: Photobooks made by Women, Colors Magazine, The Guardian and BJP. It was exhibited during FotoIstanbul, Organ Vida and at Deichtorhallen Hamburg. It was finalist at PHE OjodePez Award for Human Values and Renaissance Photography Prize, Arles Author Book Award and Prix Levallois.

I won a few prizes including the New York Photo Award and the DOCfield Dummy Award with Be Good. Be Good was published in NYPH Journal: The Future of Contemporary Photography, Paper Journal, Vice and Photograph Magazine. Besides focusing on my personal work and as a photographer, I have also worked at Milk Studios and Creative Exchange Agency in New York in 2011, at Soothing Shade in 2013 and as a freelance producer for a documentary on dolls for Vice that took me as far as Japan – one of the two countries I always wanted to go since I was a child. The other one is Mexico by the way, haven’t made it there yet.

Languages: German

GoSee Profile: GoSee.News/mariasturm