Sebastian Wells (b. 1996, based between Berlin and Kyiv) merges documentary photography, writing, and publishing to investigate power structures, political staging and cultural production.
A member of
As co-founder of
Press
Books
| 2026 | Arena, Take 1: Facing the Spectacle, Spector Books, 2026 |
Selected Exhibitions
| 2026 | Group Exhibition, Berlin on Camera - 100 Years of Photography and the Press, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Berlin |
| 2026 | Solo Exhibition, ARENA, Galerie Springer, Berlin |
| 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
| 2025 | Grand Prix, Art Directors Club Germany |
| 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 |
| 2025 | After Now - Navigating Peace, Goethe Institut, Sarajevo |
Imprint
Sebastian Wells
c/o OSTKREUZ – Photographer’s Agency
Behaimstraße 34
13086 Berlin
mail@ostkreuz.de
© for the photographs: Sebastian Wells, 2016-2025
© for the music: Doomscroll Shame by Poly Chain, 2025
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.
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. [...]
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.
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. [...]
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