ants and butterflies is a Berlin-based, transdisciplinary collective that has been realising internet-based projects at the intersection of photography, documentation, sound art, architecture, media art and cultural education since the early 2000s. The works are often created through long-term collaborations with artists, institutions and initiatives from the fields of art, music, science and civil society.

At the heart of their photographic practice lies a documentary-essayistic approach that focuses less on spectacular individual images and more on contexts, processes and spatial relationships. Photography does not function in isolation here, but as a mediating medium within larger media structures comprising film, sound, text and digital formats. Many projects are explicitly site-specific and respond to architectural, social or historical conditions.

The photographic style is characterised by restraint, precision and a structural perspective. People, spaces and objects are captured soberly, attentively and without dramatising exaggeration. Typical features include clear compositions, controlled lighting and an interest in transitions: between the public and the private, function and meaning, everyday life and artistic conception. The images do not claim to offer a definitive interpretation, but rather open up spaces for reflection.

Thematically, ants and butterflies frequently explores fields such as

• art and sound production in public spaces,
• architecture and the built environment,
• social and ecological issues,
• cultural education processes, and
• medical and humanitarian contexts (e.g. international documentary projects).

Brief description of the style

Calm, precise documentary photography with a strong sense of space, a serial structure and a deliberately detached, analytical stance towards the subject.