The motto of my work is “Let me stay tender-hearted, despite despite despite…”

What I mean is, when we are born into this world we are all tender-hearted. Then life happens, and our hearts are bound to be affected and afflicted – sometimes broken, sometimes hardened. I try to capture moments of tender-heartedness, as a reminder of where we once came from, and can always return to if we so choose. Because hearts can heal. At least that is what I want to believe.

ANNA SIBYLLA is an Italian-Dutch artist with Asian roots. She graduated in directing from the Italian national film school Scuola Nazionale di Cinema in Rome. Her background in film and storytelling forms the foundation of her photography work.

Anna began her photographic practice in 2021, in the middle of a burnout and the Covid-19 lockdowns, when the whole world was on hold. A five-week online FotoFilmic masterclass series with photographer Hellen van Meene inspired Anna to find her voice again through photography, which offered full freedom to create autonomously from the confinement of her home, which is where most of her work has been shot so far. 

In 2021 Anna got selected for the Fresh Eyes publication; a yearly photography guide featuring a selection of the best emerging European photography talents. Various publications and group exhibitions in Tokyo and Seoul followed, and a solo exhibition at the CICA museum in South-Korea will take place next summer, 2024.

Anna’s work mainly focuses on the lives and experiences of women and girls; in particular on coming-of-age and other moments of transition and metamorphosis. Her ethereal portraits and still lifes are exclusively shot with natural light, adding to a sense of delicate intimacy. Recurring settings are old and dilapidated buildings and spaces that exist outside of time and space, imbued with nostalgia and an awareness for the impermanence of things.