The internationally renowned German photographer Sascha Weidner will be in New Zealand. In Wellington and Auckland he will give talks about his work and passion for photography.

"Sascha Weidner works within a radical subjective pictorial world. This world is greatly influenced by the perceptions, longings and dreamed images of a generation whose credo can perhaps be best described by the slogan NO FUTURE – MUCH PRESENT. The drums... batter away in the background, the guitars scrape. It sounds like punk, but is, in fact, the next, and next-again, and next-next-again generation: now the rhythms are more melodic, and the melodies are gentler. Sascha Weidner’s photographs are like songs.Their poetry soaks up memories and longings and creates real /unreal images of resonating beauty. Life is a film, and every image stands for longing." Inka Schube (Sprengel Museum), Germany

Weidner will give lectures on the topic "UNTIL IT HURTS – Photography as a Picture of Empathy & Pictorial Narration". He will talk about his art and discuss his photography which are traces of past events. Personal records that as pictorial components and codes can be integrated into Weidner’s autobiographical narrative structure. The illustrated lecture will also include his shortfilm 9:48.

About Sascha Weidner Sascha Weidner, born 1976 in Osnabrueck, studied fine arts at Brunswick School of Arts (HBK). 2003 / 2004 he achieves the Diploma in Fine Arts and as an Honor student under Prof. Dörte Eißfeldt the Diploma in Communication Design. Weidner received several awards: 2003 a scholarship from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Science & Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to stay in Como, Italy and last year the sponsorship award of Kunstpreis Berlin - Jubiläumsstiftung. Weidner currently lives and works as a photographer in Berlin.

The fundamental theme is perhaps of all the works of Sascha Weidner: human existence is projected into beauty. It is confronted with images, of which beauty is a component, which it produces, destroys and then retreats from. A quiet melancholy pervades these images, as does an ardour that rejoices in life. Sascha Weidner works on several series simultaneously. At times, they overlap; the pictures move from one series to another, are created for a specific work, resolutely analyse another.