Profil Sembang Terbalik Tanja

Tanja grew up in a small village in northern Hesse, surrounded by half-timbered houses and endless cornfields. At 18, she discovered the world of photography through her aunt's old SLR camera—initially out of boredom, later with growing obsession. After graduating from high school, she moved to Leipzig in 2020, studied communication design, worked part-time in a small screen printing workshop, and there learned to love the smell of ink and solvents. By the age of 23, she had already held two solo exhibitions: one in a backyard café ("Kassel, 4:37 a.m."—photos of empty bus stops at night), and the second in the basement of a self-managed cultural center ("Skin & Asphalt"). Her pictures rarely tell entire stories—usually just the moment just before or after. People often appear as extras in her own lives. In addition to photography, she writes short, laconic texts that oscillate somewhere between Instagram captions and poetry. She lives in a shared apartment in Plagwitz, rides her bike way too fast, drinks too much filter coffee, and has a habit of suddenly setting off at three in the morning "to see what the city looks like without people." Her biggest dream isn't fame, but an old fire station on the edge of a lake, which she eventually wants to convert into a place for photography, music, and doing nothing. Until then, she continues to collect light, shadows, and the seconds when no one is looking.