How do you promote body positivity and radical self love in a fat phobic world?  I collaborate with Lisa-Maria Walter, an activist and inspiration: a_fat_future.

PLAYING IN MY BACKYARD: “For over 30 years, I was raised in a fat-phobic system and was trapped in a very bad eating disorder. Until I asked myself: How am I supposed to take care of myself if I don’t even like my own body? I decided to radically accept all of me.” – Lisa

Read more here: blogpost

FAT BRANDING: “These photos are the results of using a beamer to project pictures on me that society constructed on fat bodies… on my fat body. By making art of these hurting moments in my life I take back control and make new memories with these photos. “ – Lisa

EATING IN PUBLIC: “I have an eating disorder and eating in public for me never felt save. While others eating chips and snacks in trains and at beaches etc. I was ashamed of me showing eating. And the few times I did I always had to deal with people telling me to stop. That’s not good for me BlaBla… So I hid it.” – Lisa

LIVING CANVAS: “I was doing an interactive nude performance in the FOLSOM crowd. I let people write and draw on my body what they think of me when they saw me. And it was a blast!!! So, so many of you started to draw hearts on me, you were encouraging me and let me know about my uniqueness and beauty. I couldn’t stop laughing and smiling …… No shame, no hate, no judges.” – Lisa

this is an ongoing project…..

This project started with 1 photo for an open call by Pink Ribbon, to create more awareness for breast cancer. Soon I noticed that more women wanted to show their stories. I travelled throughout the Netherlands and had many touching encounters with brave women. This analogous project was supported by foundation Volkskracht (2004-2008) and exhibited in several exhibitions.

Every human being is unique and therefore a work of art.

In 2015 I launched the first of what was to become a series of pop up photo studios in different parts of Berlin. By now I have photographed more than 800 people in 11 temporary photo studios. The interactions are spontaneous and unplanned. The portraits fill the window of the temporary studio, creating an ad hoc exhibition which showcases the beauty of each individual.

British writer and director Tim Luscombe wrote a beautiful text about my project.

Pop Up photo studio Bangkok

In 2019 I organized my first pop up photo studio abroad. I exhibited my Berlin portraits at YELO House in Bangkok. During the exhibition I photographed visitors in my photo studio that I had set up in the gallery. I organised another Pop Up studio at Madam Musur Bar, nearby the tourist area Khao San Road.

The residents of Haus 3 wanted portraits for the open day. Joachim-Fahl Haus is a residence offering assisted living for handicapped adults

During the pandemic when everything was down and nothing was allowed, I traded my photo studio for the park.

Galerie Hommes invited four photographers to document the transformation process of the disadvantaged neighbourhood Oud Charlois in Rotterdam.

I concentrated my work on a demolition block in the centre of the district.
Houses where people had enjoyed living their lives. Seemingly empty for the final countdown, but in which unofficial residents had found temporary refuge.

Pornfilmfestival Berlin is an independent, free-spirited film festival centered around the topics of sexuality, politics, feminism, gender diversity, post porn and body politics. Together with writer Rebecca Frances we visited the festival to meet its performers, producers and patrons. Here is a selection.

Diego Tigrotto arrives dressed in an all-in-one pink flamingo jumpsuit.
“This is radical self-expression,” he says, when asked about his outfit. “It allows me to be more daring.” Diego has been making porn since 2017, he’s involved in the sex-positive community and he organizes events in Rome. “There was nothing there,” he says. “I bring the animalesque – it’s burlesque and the animalistic combined.” When asked what he gets out of it, why he does it, he simply responds, “It’s a character, a persona. It allows me more. People are more open to engage with a flamingo than with a creepy guy.”

Serafina Sky has been a performer for 3 years.
“I do it for the money. It’s the most enjoyable way I’ve found to make money.” She talks about her experience on set. “It’s a safe place to try things out – I’ve had such amazing experiences. Like group sex, for example. That can be hard to manage, but on set everyone is tested, everyone is sober, we start shoots in the mornings. It’s great! Planning really doesn’t make something less sexy.

“I wasn’t seeing bodies like mine being portrayed as attractive in the mainstream and I know from my lovers that that’s just not true. I can’t expect someone to do something that I’m not willing to do. So I got into porn.” Bear co-hosts the Porn Film Festival Amsterdam as well as performing and producing porn. “I worry that if I stop doing this, things will just go back to how they were.”

Bea Blue is a filmmaker. “Indie porn is about making a statement, having an honest exchange about what people like and what turns them on. I hope that one day, we will talk about porn as openly as we talk about Hollywood films.” When asked how working in porn has changed her life, she said: “People think I’m more interesting than when I was working in commercials.”

Harvey Rabbit’s multicoloured croptop shows two unicorns fucking in a yingyang. He told of a dinner party he was at the night before. “We were a bunch of gay men and non- binary people and trans people. And there was so much stigma there because I told one of them that my film was in the Porn Film Festival. This guy stopped listening to anything I had to say, purely because I support porn. It’s not just conservatives who have a negative connotation about porn. Many people do. It’s about how our society looks at sexuality.” Harvey has been making films about sexuality for years.
“I was always obsessed with gender and sexuality. Your topics choose you. You can listen to what is driving you and make art, or you can not, and make shit art.” But it wasn’t his first choice. “I tried to write children’s books. I’ve tried to be for everyone. I’m not. It would be great if I could have just been ‘normal’.
I would be more successful: I’d have more money. I’d have different priorities.
But I wouldn’t be me.
And I like me.”