The landscape of home shaped me how I move through the world today. The sweet taste of the apples of the nearby orchards flows through my blood vessels, the starch of wild chestnuts has made me as tall as I am today and the small lights of the fireflies brought light to the darkness of the night. As I child, I could eat wild picked berries until my belly bloated and i could look for hours to find the small eggs of the orange tip butterfly. My parents, one an ecologist and the other an anthropologist, have taught me how to live in close relation to the (natural) world: I learned how to grow my own vegetables, cook from scratch, camp in the middle of nowhere and I went on many field trips. The sounds of rumbling pans, the touch of the soil, the smell of summer fields were self-evident to me as a child.

As I continue my way into a (digitalizing) world full of crises, I sense a disconnection lurking. Through photography, with beauty as my subject, I seek to (re)connect. I practice the art of noticing as a means for change. For example,  in ‘Unstill life’ I bring the natural surroundings to attention by putting it in a vase, reshaping our  preconditioned ways of perceiving. I am fascinated by the beauty of that which lies in the pureness of nature, the ordinary human or I create it within still lives. Though, I do not attempt to show the world more beautiful than it is, but rather bring an ode to simplicity.

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I am open for any question, collaboration and commision! Or are you interested to buy a work? Many are for sale and I have made a pricelist that I can send you. Please be so kind to use one of the methods below to contact me! I will answer you as soon as possible.

email - kieke.kurstjens@gmail.com
phone - (06) 58922045
instagram - @kiekekurstjens