Ist das, was ist?
Julian Stettler
Nominated by
Photoforum
How do we approach that which eludes our understanding? Through various interfaces – instruments, practices, technologies and places – we attempt to gain access to the inexplicable and non-material. From space telescopes to dark matter detectors to shamanic journeys of consciousness: they all serve as bridges to something that lies beyond our everyday understanding—the invisible, the incomprehensible, the unnameable. This photographic research project moves along these lines of tension. It combines documentary photography with accompanying texts—scientific, essayistic, prosaic, lyrical, fragmentary. The visual language oscillates between the devices built to gain knowledge and those moments in which the thirst for knowledge dissolves into the spiritual, the symbolic, the physical. "Ist das, was ist?" (Is that, what is?) does not seek answers, but rather forms of approximation. It is an attempt to make interfaces visible—and the stories, projections, and worldviews that flow through them.
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The Artist
Julian Stettler
Nominated in
By
Photoforum
Lives and Works in
Lucern
Julian Stettler, born in 1998, is an artist and photographer based in Lucerne, Switzerland. He graduated with a Bachelor in Camera Arts from the Lucerne School of Art and Design in 2022. His work revolves around fundamental questions of identity and our entanglements within the world. It is influenced by scientific research and combines empirical with spiritual knowledge. By visualizing the many beings and forces that we interact with, Julian aims to capture the diverse expressions of the universe and challenge viewers to reflect on their place within it. For him, questioning who we are and what we are part of is essential to live as part of a diverse yet entangled world.
More projects by this artist
2025
Bis hierher und nicht weiter
Projektbeschrieb: Where is “nature” actually located—and is that even the right question to ask? The Western idea of “nature” is contradictory and loaded. There are countless definitions: sometimes humans are part of “nature,” sometimes they are not. Sometimes only in biological terms, while what they have created is excluded. Then again, a distinction is made between animate and inanimate “nature,” or it is contrasted with “culture.”
We draw boundaries where perhaps none need exist. How do these mental dividing lines shape our perception, our actions, and our relationship to the world? How can we think and live as part of a complex network of co-existences – beyond binary categories?
Bis hierher und nicht weiter (This far and no further) is a photographic search for clues. An interrogation of the lines we draw.
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