The "ADC Talent Award" for the best final project in Germany in the "Photography/Illustration" category goes to communication designer and photographer and FH Dortmund Master's graduate Sarah Johanna Köster. The jury of the Art Directors Club (ADC) described her photo book as a "visually seductive experience that celebrates the power of images".
In her book "vague", Sarah Köster shows 106 photographs whose connection to reality is only tenuous and speculative. "The book poses the question," says the communication designer, "whether it is possible to create something abstract and unconcrete in our real world with the most concrete medium of all, photography, that leaves associations open."
Partly shadowy portraits, unusual views of landscapes, surreal still lifes and abstract scanographic scenes alternate and overlap on some pages. Hard and soft contours, clearly outlined and blurred clouds, modeling light and veiling shadows form the axes of this pictorial world.
Clearly becomes obscure
In the midst of unclear darkness, it is sometimes an eye, a hand or something sculptural that redirects the gaze like a planet to an asteroid. Other pictures show a person in a square or in front of a rock face, quite clearly and concretely, but the feeling that arises when looking at them is all the more unclear. Something concrete thus becomes something vague, which is involuntarily interpreted individually when viewed.
The photos in "vague" go beyond the mere reflection of reality and seem to use it as a starting point to penetrate completely new areas: Dream worlds, fictions, areas of doubt. A world of the not-yet, possibly.
World dream trip
Taking your dreams seriously, says Sarah Köster, also means holding on to your own wishes. With the help of a wide variety of photographic techniques, she wants to create visual stimuli to encourage people to reflect on their own dreams, wishes, hopes and visions.
"In times of crisis, people need dreams and visions in order to still see the positive and beautiful things in the world - both big and small," says Sarah Köster. "My book is intended to take viewers out of their everyday lives for a moment and transport them into an intermediate world that inspires them to dream."
She sees the ADC Gold Award as a great honor. The internationally recognized prize is definitely an enrichment to her CV.
To see for yourself
22 photographs from "vague" and the photo book will be on display at the Märkisches Museum Witten until September 24, 2023, together with the works of 19 other artists who, like Sarah Köster, have been nominated for the "Ennepe-Ruhr Art Prize 2023". The award ceremony is on September 8, 2023.