Your name
Stefanie Schaut
Place of birth
Belgium
Place where you live now
Belgium
3 words to describe you
Curious, considered, open-minded
Why do you take pictures?
It's a way to question social issues that matter most to me: the way we live in the world and how we treat ourselves and Mother Earth. Photography is a medium which helps me translate feelings about the world we live in. I'm not always good with words, images work better for me. As they say:
1 image is worth a 1000 words.
Where do you get your inspiration?
Mostly nature. Nature works for me in a poetic way. It can translate feelings and words which I can't put in words. I also get inspiration from reading theories around psychology and philosophy. I try to open up my own interests into a more broad field so it can become something bigger, something recognizable for people and society. You can say that it works therapeutically for me. I'd like to open up taboos through my work.
Who are your influences?
I follow a couple of instagram accounts that make a lot of beautiful work. The first names that come to my mind are Rinko Kawauchi and Lina Scheynius.
What determines the subject matter you choose?
I search for my own subjective visual poetic symbolizations of the subject matter (a lot of words I know :)). I mostly find these subjects in nature or the human body.
What impact would you like your art to have?
I want people to think twice about what they are seeing. Mostly I get the feedback that my work is on a first glimpse aesthetic or sometimes even scary. For me it's a way to lure the people and then let the people read about what it's actually about for me. I also like it when people tell me things they feel about the work.
What artwork do you never get bored with?
A hard one. Hmm, a lot of works of famous artists like Vivian Maier, Cindy Sherman, Rinko Kawauchi,....
Is there anything you want to add?
No, I'm good. :)

Under These Waves
Project statement

Stefanie Schaut wants to break taboos through her work. Nature plays a central role in her photography. She finds inspiration and frustration in the way we live in the world. We are overwhelmed by stimuli and forget our identity and relationship with society.

The aim of her images is to confront the viewer; to let the viewer turn inwards in order to reflect on their being.

In her photography she creates a distance from reality – it forces us to reflect on what we actually see; something we hardly take the time for. The slow nature of her photography symbolizes the way in which one should look at the images - intimately and silently. She is looking for a visual translation of the invisible emotional world of man.

At the beginning of her work she looked for something that transcends man; something bigger like the infinite universe - that which cannot be seen nor experienced by man. Here she made her own visualization of what she experienced as the invisible.

Today she places this idea of invisibility parallel to man himself; the inner world of man. She searches for a visual yet symbolic translation for that which cannot be said in words. This can lead to more questions to the viewer - we don’t always ‘get’ what we see, just like the way we don’t always get what we feel or think.

The images in this project are inspired by the song Nightmares by The Sea by Jeff Buckley. The photographer interprets feelings of overwhelm and vulnerability, which in turn are associated with water and air. When these two elements are brought together, a chemical reaction occurs that creates fog. The photographer links this fact to 'BrainFog' - a term from psychology that stands for the result of a brain that is (temporarily) unable to function optimally.

stefanie schaut
@soy.stefanie