Maria Sturm, “Nursing 11”, 2020
Maria Sturm, “Nursing 11”, 2020
In October 2020, I gave birth to my first child. For the first time, since long before I became a professional photographer, I picked up the camera to photograph my personal and immediate surroundings, including myself while and after being pregnant. “Nursing 11” is among a number of self-portraits I made while breastfeeding. At this point, I don’t know whether this image will ever be part of a completed body of work. What I do know is, that by giving birth, I will always be a mother.
Maria Sturm is a Romanian-born photographer living in Berlin, Germany. Her interests originate in questions of identity and perception, in particular as they pertain to groups with lifestyles distinct from those of the mainstream. Sturm has worked internationally to document the struggle for recognition in the face of pressure for uniformity in post-industrial societies. Sturm studied photography at the University of Applied Sciences in Bielefeld, Germany and at the Rhode Island School of Design as a Fulbright and DAAD scholar. Besides working on personal projects, she has an active practice as editorial and commercial photographer as well as an educator.
Sturm’s work has been exhibited internationally at the Museum der Moderne Salzburg, the Brandenburgisches Landesmuseum für Moderne Kunst, Deichtorhallen Hamburg, Aperture Foundation, Addis Foto Fest, and 72 Gallery, Tokyo.
Sturm’s photographs have been published in Photograph Magazine, How We See: Photobooks by Women, Paper Journal, Colors (magazine), The Guardian, and British Journal of Photography. Her awards include a Stiftung Kunstfonds grant, PHmuseum Women Photographers Grant, DOCfield Dummy Award Fundació Banc Sabadell, CENTER (Santa Fe) Directors Choice Award, and the Royal Photographic Society Award.