Exhibition COMMON GROUND
Bahnwärter Thiel, Munich
June 5 – 27, 2025
The series ALMA MATER is an ongoing photographic body of work that explores diversity and representation in the context of female aging.
In contemporary society, older individuals, especially those read as female, are frequently marginalized: overlooked, romanticized, or reduced to one-dimensional, stereotypical roles. They do not conform to the dominant ideal of beauty, which glorifies, even fetishizes, youth, and are often pushed to the margins of public discourse or rendered entirely invisible.
The series moves between staged visual language and documentary immediacy. It invites critical reflection, challenges the habitual gaze, and disrupts conventional notions of what aging is supposed to look like.
The title ALMA MATER—derived from Latin and originally used as an honorific term for universities—refers to places of intellectual nourishment, education, and human formation. I deliberately reclaim this term and transfer it to women whose life experience, wisdom, and presence are formative and inspiring. Here, ALMA MATER stands symbolically for female strength, the dignity of age, lived diversity, and the essential societal relevance of older women, who all too often remain unseen or forgotten.
Thank you to my powerful protagonist for being part of ALMA MATER
@kostjanix
The exhibition Common Ground presents works by 20 photographers from the
@femalephotoclub Munich. Through large-format prints they explore and interpret social issues from diverse perspectives.
Curated by Birthe Steinbeck (Art Director, Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin)
3rd picture by
@lily.alssen 
