Issue 21 – In Conversation with .. 10!

What inspired you to create the “BIGGER”
photo book, and how is it a continuation of
your previous work?
Being a bigger-built person has always been
a part of my life. Since my teenage years, I have
been dealing with body issues and suffering
under the pressure of beauty standards, mostly
pressure that I put on myself. It’s absurd how
delusional our self-perception can be, especially
while growing up but even at that point where
you should know better as an adult, that every
body is a beach body and happiness doesn’t
come from looks. But self-acceptance is not
a destination you reach and then have a
guarantee; it has to be earned every day anew,
a constant challenge which we can complete
some days very well and some days not so good.
We just go with it, and try our best. One way
of doing so was for me to work on this new
photobook. The lack of bigger-built bodies in
the (social) media is enormous. All my books
come deep from my inner desire to express
myself, “Gender as a Spectrum” helped me to
understand the topic of gender in general and
also my own way of dealing with who I am.
“Darlings!” is a photo collage diary of some of
my Berlin years and “BIGGER” seems to me just
like a natural development of working on myself
and seeing the beauty in moments rather than in
things or “looks.”
Can you share some insights on how you
selected the 80 portraits for the book?
It was a journey of two years. Looking for big
guys wasn’t as easy as I thought. A lot of guys
were fine showing themselves on dating platforms
or social media, but when I approached them,
they couldn’t make the move and have the
courage to be photographed professionally.
In times of oversharing and over-sexualizing,
many men live with insecurity, telling themselves
they deserve to be seen but also giving up a bit of
control over how their bodies are shown seems,
for many people, impossible. Even so, I worked
closely with each model, trying to leave them
satisfied with the results and make them feel seen.
How do you hope “BIGGER” will impact men’s
perception of their bodies?
I believe just the fact of being confronted with
pictures of bigger bodies helps to normalize
a more diverse body image. If we step outside,
we see all kinds of people with different bodies,
and nearly everyone wishes to have something
changed, myself included. But what if we can all
accept that loving yourself is the only thing that
makes life worth living? There is always a way to
improve yourself, but the first step is to understand
that you are enough.
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