Through the Lens of Survival

Confluence Community
5 days ago
3 min read

October 2025 Artist of the Month | kunst.ist.relativ

In a quiet town in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, an artist known as kunst.ist.relativ is rediscovering the world through the lens of a camera, not for fame, not for profit, but for survival and healing.

Photography, for this artist, is not a profession or a pursuit of perfection. It is therapy, a dialogue between light and darkness, between what can be seen and what must be felt. Behind each image is a deep, ongoing battle with depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. A camera, a simple object, has become, sword and shield, a tool for fighting back against the darkness that clouds the mind.

Image by @Kunst.ist.relativ — Image by @Kunst.ist .relativ

“Photography is therapy, passion instead of profit."

A Journey Through Shadows

Born in East Germany in the early 1980s, kunst.ist.relativ grew up the son of a stonemason, surrounded by both craft and hardship. Their first camera became a prized possession, a secondhand promotional giveaway, yet it was a window into another world. As a child, they couldn’t afford film or development, but they played “pretend photographer,” framing the world through a lens that became a shield against a harsh reality marked by violence, addiction, and neglect.

Through the viewfinder, they built another world, one that was still and safe.

There was freedom in it, expression, perhaps even hope. But that light dimmed abruptly. Depression hit “like falling into a hole overnight,” and the camera, once a source of joy, went silent for twenty years.

“I lost my motivation, my sense of beauty, the vision for the small things that once made me feel alive. When you can’t feel joy anymore, life itself begins to lose meaning.”

The Return to Light

Decades later, the gift of a camera from their wife reignited something long buried. It wasn’t a casual present, but hope that he might once again find something that belonged only to him.

What began as an experiment, posting photos to Instagram without expectation, grew into something unexpectedly meaningful. Strangers reached out, moved by the raw honesty of his photography. One message changed everything:

“Someone wrote to me that my photos made them smile, that they gave them a good feeling in a dark time,” he said. “That’s why I stayed. That’s why I keep going.”

That message became the spark, a reason to keep taking photos, to share them not for attention, but connection. His work lives under the name kunst.ist.relativ, “art is relative.” A statement that speaks to his philosophy that art does not need perfection or prestige, only honesty.

Photography as Survival

For kunst.ist.relativ, photography is an act of self-preservation, each image is a moment of resistance against the shadows of depression. The process of looking through the lens forces stillness, observation, and connection, moments when the noise in the mind softens, and the world becomes quiet enough to see again.

His subjects are trees, insects, railroads, architecture, light, and texture, reflecting that therapeutic slowness. There’s an intimacy in his images, a tension between strength and fragility. Even the smallest details, like the wings of a Tapered Drone Fly or the bark of an old tree, become a deep reflection of resilience.

The story of kunst.ist.relativ reminds us that art does not need to be grand to be profound. Sometimes, it is a lonely act of survival, one photo at a time. Through his work, photography becomes a form of mindfulness, an anchor that pulls us out of the fog and back into the world, not an escape from darkness, but a reclamation of light.