I create at the crossroads of photography, craft, and design — but more than that, I create at the crossroads of memory and becoming.
About Anna Scheidemann
My work is a search for female self-identity: not as a fixed definition, but as a journey through portraits, objects, and stories. Every photograph, every knitted garment, every piece of jewelry or art book is a fragment of this journey — a way of asking what it means to be a woman, to belong, to stand between past and future.
I believe that art is not only about aesthetics. It is about finding new meanings, about transforming inherited symbols into contemporary languages. In my projects, I weave together cultural traditions and personal narratives:
• In HessenTracht, I return to the ancestral roots of Hesse, reinterpreting its traditional costumes as living symbols of identity.
• In Frau sein in Marburg, I listen to the voices of women across generations, mapping the many faces of femininity in my community.
• In Brothers Grimm, I dive into the mythology of fairy tales, discovering how collective memory shapes imagination today.
These projects are not archives. They are reinventions. They are bridges between roots and reinvention, between what we inherit and what we choose to become.
My brand, Anna Scheidemann, exists in this tension — between intimacy and universality, tradition and innovation, the personal and the shared. It is a world where photography becomes wearable, where craft becomes storytelling, and where objects carry the depth of memory.
To create is to return, but also to move forward. To look at the past and to see not nostalgia, but possibility. To recognize the roots, and from them to grow.
This is my manifesto: art as self-discovery, design as cultural memory, creation as an act of becoming.
Bio
Anna Scheidemann (b. 1976, Kyiv — based in Marburg, Germany) is a photographer, artist, and designer whose work bridges cultural heritage and contemporary aesthetics. A graduate of the New York Film Academy and recipient of the Otto-Ubbelohde-Preis (2021), she explores themes of identity, femininity, and tradition through both visual and material forms.
Her major projects include HessenTracht, a reimagining of Hessian folk costumes; Frau sein in Marburg, a series of one hundred portraits and interviews with women of different generations; and Brothers Grimm, a photographic journey into the mythological and fairy-tale roots of her adopted region.
Alongside her cultural work, Anna has developed international ballet photography projects, capturing the elegance and discipline of dancers across Europe and beyond. Her ballet series has been published in leading fashion and lifestyle magazines such as Vogue, Elle, Marie Claire, and others, reflecting the universal resonance of movement, beauty, and form in her visual language.
Expanding her practice beyond photography, Anna creates hand-knitted garments, jewelry, art books, and limited-edition objects. Her capsule collection BOBKOVA x SCHEIDEMANN, developed with designer Kristina Bobkova, transforms details of traditional Hessian attire into 32 unique, handmade, and upcycled pieces.
Through her work, Anna Scheidemann investigates the search for female self-identity, the reinterpretation of cultural roots, and the creation of new meanings at the intersection of art, design, and memory.