A member of
Sebastian’s work centers on long-term documentary projects that examine the interplay between spaces, people, and systems of power. His photographic series about the Olympic Games,
In 2022, he co-founded the English-language magazine
Follow and Contact
Press
Artistic Education
| 2015–18 | Ostkreuzschule for Photography and Design, Berlin |
| 2020–24 | University of Applied Sciences, Bielefeld |
| 2021–22 | KASK School of Arts, Ghent |
Selected Exhibitions
| 2024 | Solo Exhibition, Typ/Traube/Tross, Haus am Kleistpark, Berlin |
| 2024 | Solo Exhibition, La Rada di Augusta, Galerie Focale, Nyon |
| 2024 | Solo Exhibition, Eine Sportschau, Institut français, Berlin |
| 2023 | Group Exhibition, A Garden Of Roots, HSBI WERKSCHAU 2023, Bielefeld |
| 2022 | Artist Talk and Group Exhibition, Solomiya № 1, Galerie Springer, Berlin |
| 2022 | Group Exhibition, Kontinent, OSTKREUZ Agentur, Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation, Frankfurt |
| 2021 | Group Exhibition, Kontinent, OSTKREUZ Agentur, Kunsthalle Erfurt |
| 2021 | Solo Exhibition, La Rada di Augusta, Artphilein Foundation, Lugano |
| 2020 | Group Exhibition, Kontinent, OSTKREUZ Agentur, Akademie der Künste, Berlin |
| 2020 | Group Exhibition, Framing Identity, Museum for Photography, Braunschweig |
| 2019 | Solo Exhibition, Anhänger, Galerie Fenster, Eberswalde |
| 2018 | Group Exhibition, Olympia, at Lumix Festival, Hannover |
| 2018 | Group Exhibition, Sharing Spaces, Feldfuenf Project Gallery, Berlin |
Awards and Residencies
| 2024 | Artist in Residence, Cité internationale des Arts, Paris |
| 2024 | Gold, Art Directors Club Germany |
| 2024 | Gold, Art Directors Club Europe |
| 2024 | Distinction, Joseph Binder Award, Vienna |
| 2023 | German Peace Prize for Photography, Osnabrück |
| 2023 | Nomination for the Story of the Year, Stern Preis 2023, Hamburg |
| 2023 | Portraits Hellerau Photography Award, Dresden |
| 2023 | Gold, Art Directors Club Germany |
| 2023 | Distinction, Art Directors Club Germany |
| 2023 | Bronze, Art Directors Club Europe |
| 2022 | Award of the Jury, Les Boutographies, Montpellier |
| 2019 | Finalist, Leica Oscar Barnack Award, Berlin |
| 2019 | Winner, New Talent Award at Photo Month, Belgrade |
| 2018 | Winner, FOLA Photobook Award, Buenos Aires |
| 2018 | Winner, Art Competition, Münzenberg Forum, Berlin |
| 2017 | Young Talent Prize, Dumont Journalism Awards 2016, Halle an der Saale |
| 2017 | 1st Prize, VDS Sportsphoto of the Year 2016, Dortmund |
Curating
| 2025 | Solomiya Studio, KVOST - Kunstverein Ost, Berlin |
Imprint
Sebastian Wells
c/o OSTKREUZ – Photographer’s Agency
Behaimstraße 34
13086 Berlin
mail@ostkreuz.de
+49 30 47373930
© for the photographs: Sebastian Wells, 2016-2025
© for the music: Doomscroll Shame by Poly Chain, 2025
Photography
2016-2024
A ski jumper?
Yes, right at the top of the platform
Are you afraid of heights? No, but the stairs are extremely steep. When I went down them, I was afraid of falling. We were 100 metres above the ground. It was dead silence. Nobody spoke and you couldn't hear the roar of the spectators from below.
It looks somehow staged... The question is, who made it?
You? Am I the director?
That's not theatre! But a great TV show
So you didn't put it up? I don’t think so, but to a certain extent, I exposed the staging that was set up to my images.
Can I then trust the picture? Is that what you want?
Are you afraid of heights? No, but the stairs are extremely steep. When I went down them, I was afraid of falling. We were 100 metres above the ground. It was dead silence. Nobody spoke and you couldn't hear the roar of the spectators from below.
It looks somehow staged... The question is, who made it?
You? Am I the director?
That's not theatre! But a great TV show
So you didn't put it up? I don’t think so, but to a certain extent, I exposed the staging that was set up to my images.
Can I then trust the picture? Is that what you want?
Exhibition Views:
Writing, Photography
2023
Are we a diaspora?
No!
We might become a diaspora, if we stay here.
Yet, we’re not building anything here, there’s no space for planning.
But we’re also not refugees.
No, we didn’t flee the war. We came here as we were looking for opportunities.
I left because I didn’t want to serve in the army. I am technically a defector.
Maybe we are expats.
No!
We might become a diaspora, if we stay here.
Yet, we’re not building anything here, there’s no space for planning.
But we’re also not refugees.
No, we didn’t flee the war. We came here as we were looking for opportunities.
I left because I didn’t want to serve in the army. I am technically a defector.
Maybe we are expats.
Written for and published in
Photography, Installation
2021-2023
Why the newspapers?
To the pile of old, printed newspapers represent a medium of the past. But laying there, the newspapers intervene in the present. Each newspaper stores the information of a day in history.
It gives a sense of nostalgia. Yes, and it refers to the topic of this work, nationalism, since nationalist ideas only appeared after the printing press was invented, enabling a national discourse in people’s vernacular.
The imagined community of random people. Like this group.
How did they agree to be photographed? Well, I just asked them and they agreed.
They agreed? I told them I’m an art student interested in the topic of nationalism and that I’m curious to investigate the role of the uniform visually.
But, which side do you take? I don’t think I understand the question. I’m trying to dissect nationalism.
It gives a sense of nostalgia. Yes, and it refers to the topic of this work, nationalism, since nationalist ideas only appeared after the printing press was invented, enabling a national discourse in people’s vernacular.
The imagined community of random people. Like this group.
How did they agree to be photographed? Well, I just asked them and they agreed.
They agreed? I told them I’m an art student interested in the topic of nationalism and that I’m curious to investigate the role of the uniform visually.
But, which side do you take? I don’t think I understand the question. I’m trying to dissect nationalism.
Exhibition views:
Photography, Installation
2023
The biggest deception was, of all things, a photograph. Dated 1962, the small picture, barely larger than a postage stamp, shows two men on the Old Bridge in Heidelberg. The man on the left is young, slim, well-dressed and looks a bit like me. On the back of the photo is written, among other things: Wells.
Your grandfather?It is not him. Walter Wells was already 56 years old in 1962. As it turned out, he grew up in Vienna with six siblings, a Polish passport and Jewish parents. Samuel, his father, and Josephine, his mother, were actually called Vogelhut and were among the first to come to the Austrian capital from what was then Galicia at the end of the 20th century and apparently enjoyed a good reputation before those who later imitated them were disparagingly dismissed as “Eastern Jews”. Samuel and Josephine died before the worst could have happened to them when the Nazis annexed Austria in 1938. Walter Vogelhut and most of his siblings took flight and left Europe. Two years later, he received an American passport. He is now called Walter Wells, as he has been since his arrival in America. He lives in splendid houses in Hollywood, marries his wife, Mary Parker, travels to France or England from time to time and apparently to West Germany at the end of the 1950s.
He meets my grandmother, who, in her early 20s, could be his child. He takes the young Sigrid with him to London, not just on a business trip, but to the registry office. In posh Westminster, the daughter of a war criminal marries a Jew who may not even have told her that he is one. After only two years of marriage, at the end of 1961, Walter Wells drives to Juarez by car and may have to queue up behind his equally rich neighbors from Hollywood who, like him, wanted to get rid of a marriage without red tape. Walter divorces Sigrid a year before my father, Andreas, is born. Although “Walter Wells” is on Andreas' birth certificate, Walter only gave birth to his surname. There was another man, a man from Spain, whose only known name was Gonzales.How did you find out about this?
He meets my grandmother, who, in her early 20s, could be his child. He takes the young Sigrid with him to London, not just on a business trip, but to the registry office. In posh Westminster, the daughter of a war criminal marries a Jew who may not even have told her that he is one. After only two years of marriage, at the end of 1961, Walter Wells drives to Juarez by car and may have to queue up behind his equally rich neighbors from Hollywood who, like him, wanted to get rid of a marriage without red tape. Walter divorces Sigrid a year before my father, Andreas, is born. Although “Walter Wells” is on Andreas' birth certificate, Walter only gave birth to his surname. There was another man, a man from Spain, whose only known name was Gonzales.How did you find out about this?
Exhibition views:
Publishing, Editing, Curating
since 2022
Spreadsheets:
Photography, Video
2019-2020
Exhibition Views:
Photography
2019
Do you want Hong Kong to be independent?
I can’t talk openly about this.
...
But yes, sure.
I can’t talk openly about this.
...
But yes, sure.
Exhibition View: