Artist Statement
A significant part of my artistic practice involves moving through forests, meadows, and mountainous landscapes as open-ended explorations of morethan-human worlds. In these environments, I find beings, materials, and processes that often remain at the margins of human perception. The images that emerge from these encounters become thresholds into dimensions of life and agency that exceed human-centered categories of knowledge.
My practice moves between sculptural staging and experimental procedures in which authorship is gradually relinquished. On one end, I work with natural formations such as stones, roots, or organic matter, treating them as both material and collaborator, with a sculptural sensibility. On the other end, I employ methods where photographic processes are partly delegated to environmental agencies. Between these poles, my practice opens a field where photography becomes both an act of shaping and a site of co-creation.
Drawing on speculative aesthetics and posthumanist thought, my work seeks to create visual spaces that expand perception and open fields of resonance, reflection, and imagination. The images unsettle habitual distinctions between animate and inanimate, life and non-life, art and nature. Through this process, imaginary perspectives emerge that reveal ecological complexity and evoke a surreal dimension where the familiar gains unforeseen vitality. Rather than documenting ecological crisis, my practice engages with photographic speculation: a visual inquiry into how images can make space for the more-than-human to appear not as object, but as co-actor in shared existence. In doing so, it seeks to counter the habitual ignorance of the living intelligence surrounding us and to cultivate a mode of visual thinking that makes the complexity of our environment perceptible.
Biography
Martin Tscholl (b. 1983) is a Berlin-based artist working at the intersection of photography, artistic research, and ecological thought. His practice combines staged and experimental photographic processes with a posthuman perspective, exploring how images can reveal the agency and liveliness of nonhuman worlds.
He is an artistic researcher at the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin and at SINTA (Studies in the Arts), University of Bern and Bern University of the Arts. Tscholl studied fine art photography at the Ostkreuzschule Berlin with Ludwig Rauch (2017–2019) and in the Masterclass program (2020–2023). He also holds an M.A. in Visual and Media Anthropology.
Tscholl’s works have been exhibited internationally, including at Copenhagen Photo Festival, Fotofestival Lenzburg, Encontros da Imagem Braga, and Fresh Eyes Photo Fair Amsterdam. His book Imaginary Ecologies, published by The Eriskay Connection (2024) and distributed worldwide, further extends his exploration of ecological entanglements through visual inquiry. His artistic approach positions photography as a speculative medium, bridging visual poetics, ecological sensitivity, and more-than-human imaginaries.
Exhibitions/presentations
2024 Book Presentation "Imaginary Ecologies", Paris Photo
2024 Forest Vortex - Im Sog des Waldes, Fotogalerie Friedrichshain, Berlin. Curator: Thomas Stanka
2024 Anthropocene: Before, Still and Tomorrow, Braga, Portugal. Curator: Vítor Nieves
2023 Kunstraum Potsdam, Masterclass Ludwig Rauch
2022 Photopia, Hamburg
2022 Fotogipfel Oberstdorf, Kunsthaus Villa Jaus
2020 Photo Kyiv, International Photography Fair
2020 Social and Distance, Torstrasse 111 - Forum für zeitgenössische Kunst, Berlin
2020 Armenia Art Fair, Yerevan
2020 Fresh Eyes Photo Fair, Amsterdam
2020 International Photography Festival FestFoto, Ibere Camargo Museum, Porto Alegre
2020 International Photography Festival Encontros Da Imagem, Braga
2019 The Independent Photographer, Talents Of The Year 2019, Fifty dots Gallery, Barcelona
2019 The Censored Exhibition, Copenhagen Photo Festival
2019 Suche nach Schönheit, Fotofestival Lenzburg
2019 Abstract, The SE Center for Photography
2019 Vom Kopf zum Bild und zurück, Kunstquartier Bethanien, Berlin
2018 Die Unwiderlegbarkeit der Behauptung, Torstrasse 111 - Forum für zeitgenössische Kunst, Berlin
Awards & Nominations
2023 Emergentes 2023 - International Photography Award Encontros da Imagem, Braga: Finalist
2021 Profitfoto New Talent Award 20/21: Winner - 2nd Prize
2020 Athen Photofestival: Shortlist
2020 Fresh Eyes, GUP Magazine: Emerging Talent
2020 Kolga Tbilisi Photo 2020: Shortlist
2020 International Photography Festival FestFoto, Porto Alegre: Finalist
2020 Aesthetica Art Prize: Longlist
2019 Emergentes 2019 - International Photography Award Encontros da Imagem, Braga: Finalist
2019 International Photography Grant - Category Landscape: Nominee
2019 Barcelona International Photography Awards : Nominee
2019 Athen Photofestival: Shortlist
2019 Fine Art Photography Award - Category Landscape: Nominee
2019 The Independent Photographer - Color Photography Award 2019: Winner - 3rd Prize
Publications
2021 Profifoto Nr. 7-8 - Feature
2020 Analog Magazine - Feature and Interview
2020 Fresh Eyes - The best 100 emerging photography talent from Europe - powered by GUP Magazine
2020 Future Now - 100 Contemporary Artists from the Aesthetica Art Price
2019 Competitions Awards - Talents of the year 2018/2019 - The Independent Photographer
2019 Copenhagen Photo Festival Event Auction Catalogue - Bruun Rasmussen, Auctioneers of Fine Art
Academic Publications & Presentations
Talks & Presentations
2025
Photography as More-than-Human Inquiry – On Visual Thinking in Artistic Research Resonance, 16th International Conference on Artistic Research, Society of Artistic Research (SAR), University of Porto, May 7–9, 2025 (planned)
2022
Imagining the Nonhuman – Visual Practices and Knowledge Production in Urban Biodiversity Research
Rethinking Sustainability through Applied Anthropology, 10th Conference of the Italian Society of Applied Anthropology (SIAA), Verona, December 14–17, 2022
2022
Photography and the Nonhuman
Caught in the Crisis? Doing Audio-Visual Ethnography in Times of Crisis, AG Visual Anthropology, CFP Interim Conference, Münster, October 28–29, 2022
2018
Picturing Nature – On Analyzing Images of Urban Natures in Digital Environments
Embedded Digitalities, Conference on Digital Anthropology (organized by the German Society for Empirical Cultural Studies and the Swiss Society for Folklore Studies), Basel, April 5–7, 2018
Selected Academic Publications
2025 (forthcoming)
Tscholl, Martin. Ökologien bildlich denken. Fotografische Praktiken zwischen Imagination und Wirklichkeit. In: Michael Schäuble & Thomas Gartmann
(eds.), Studies in the Arts – Neue Perspektiven auf Forschung über, in und durch Kunst und Design, Bielefeld: transcript.
2025 (forthcoming)
Tscholl, Martin & Ulrike Sturm. Artistic Research. In: Handbuch Partizipation in der Wissenschaft,
Wiesbaden: Springer VS.
2024
Tscholl, Martin. Imaginary Ecologies. Breda: The Eriskay Connection. ISBN: 978-94-93148-60-9
eriskayconnection.com/imaginary-ecologies
2022
Tscholl, Martin & Ulrike Sturm. Posting Nature: A Critical Perspective on Analysing Cultural Ecosystem Services on Instagram. Journal of Environmental Media, 3(2).
2022
Tscholl, Martin, Maike Weißpflug, Marco Wedel & Ulrike Sturm. People and Nature – Fostering Inter- and Transdisciplinary Collaboration for Biodiversity
and Sustainable Human Interactions. Innovation: The European Journal of Social Science Research, 35(3): 367–369.
2022
Tscholl, Martin, Maike Weißpflug, Marco Wedel & Ulrike Sturm (eds.). Special Issue: People and Nature. Innovation: The European Journal of Social Science Research, 35(3)
Artist Residency
2021 Mountain Residency Program of Photographic Research at Verzasca Photo
