Artist Talk with Dörte Eißfeldt

In this Artist Talk, Dörte Eißfeldt, Rebecca Wilton, and Steffen Siegel provide insight into the multi-layered creative process behind the book Stehen, Liegen, Hängen (Standing Lying Hanging), recently published by Distanz Verlag. Together they discuss how the intimate, meditative atmosphere of the studio gave rise to a book and ultimately an exhibition. 
What new perspectives does the book offer compared to a traditional exhibition catalog?


In her artist’s book, Dörte Eißfeldt takes us to the place where her pictures have been coming into existence, her studio—the central point of reference in her oeuvre. She shares with us her personal view of her works, of combinations and situations in the studio. The prints change their positions, are pinned to the wall with clips and magnets, hung upside down, placed upright, on the floor, folded. She also uses the pages of the book to compose the works, to encounter them again and again. In this way, Eißfeldt translates her ongoing manipulation of photographic material into the medium of the book, flanked by essays by Steffen Siegel and Rebecca Wilton.

Dörte Eißfeldt lives in Neuenkirchen and Hamburg. Her work is held in many institutional collections including Museum Folkwang, Essen; Sprengel Museum, Hanover; DZ Bank Kunstsammlung, Frankfurt; Staatsgalerie Stuttgart; Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg; Fotohof, Salzburg; Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris; Musée d’Art Moderne, Paris; Musée de la Photographie Européenne, Paris; Museum of Modern Art, New York; and Kolumba, Cologne. Stehen Liegen Hängen published by Distanz Verlag in 2024, gathers her work alongside essays by Rebecca Wilton and Steffen Siegel. Dörte Eißfeldt received the Prix Viviane Esders in November 2025.

Prof. Dr. Steffen Siegel has been professor for the theory and history of photography at Folkwang Folkwang University of the Arts since 2015. At Folkwang, he is the director of the MA and PhD programs for photo history. Since 2024, he has been the chairman of the Essen Center for Photography and an elected member of the North Rhine Westphalia Academy of Sciences and Arts. 

Rebecca Wilton is an author, critic and curator has been responsible for the photography programme at Berlin-based Distanz Verlag since 2023. In addition to self-initiated curatorial projects, she realises institutional commissions, most recently for the EMOP Berlin (Politics of Touch, 2023; Photos in Books, 2025) as well as book publications in the artistic field and teaching assignments on photography and photographic publishing. Since 2020, she has been working with curator Maren Lübbke-Tidow on the continuously expanding Lighting the Archive, an online series on photographic technics, structures of order and materialities.