Sandra Mann

Sandra Mann is a member of the German Association of Artists. In 2016/17 she was an art ambassador for the Palmengarten and Botanical Garden Foundation and has been an art ambassador for the Keep The World Foundation since 2017.

Mann lives in Frankfurt am Main, led the photography class at the AVA Academy of Visual Arts / Frankfurter Akademie für Kommunikation und Design and has been teaching photography and imagery at the European School of Design since 2011.

In autumn 2008, the Vehbi Koç Foundation, curated by the artist Ekrem Yalcindag, dedicated an exhibition to her in the Operation Room exhibition hall of the American Hospital in Istanbul. Since 2012, Mann has dedicated her series Waldlife to the topics of diversity, climate change and nature conservation.

Sandra Mann achieved her international breakthrough in 2005 with a second version of her work Expedit.

The video “Balla Balla” from 2005 shows at first glance a group of women veiled in a chador playing football in front of an abandoned industrial site. The viewer is misled by the images: In fact, the women are not playing in the Middle East, but in Frankfurt am Main, on the grounds of the empty wholesale market hall. In 2002 the grounds of the wholesale market hall were bought by the European Central Bank. In the Third Reich it was used as a deportation station for Jewish children, women and men. The supposed Muslim women are actually a German women's soccer team of various religions, which confidently deals with the inconvenience of the superimposed culture. This is evident from the professional style of play. The video is musically underlaid with the techno piece “Apricot” by Sven Väth , which increases the irritation of the viewer – something is wrong here.

A recurring element of her work is dealing with boundaries and their abolition. The mixing of different media areas as a means of expression is part of their content-related analysis. One of her first video works, the music video Biomechanics, was created for Anthony Rother. She took photos with a Nikon F3, serially with a motor. Instead of filming, she had the slides scanned and animated, and in this way obtained a video in 35 mm quality. In 2001, she transformed an empty business space into a Schnaken memorial. Representing a fictional funeral home, she presented the mosquitoes in small coffins, accompanied by a rich buffet, funeral music and a book of condolences, and in the Buddhist way thought of a tiny insect that is more known as a nuisance than as a memorable animal.

Sandra Mann studied art history at the Goethe University Frankfurt and studied visual communication at the Hochschule für Gestaltung Offenbach am Main with Heiner Blum, Rudolf Bonvie, and Lewis Baltz. While still a student, Jean-Christophe Ammann acquired several of her works for the Museum of Modern Art in Frankfurt and exhibited them. She financed her studies with part-time jobs in bars and clubs. During this time she staged people from the nightlife, such as B. bouncers, bartenders or DJs, in the style of saints. The first orders from music and lifestyle magazines followed, as well as photo orders for well-known companies (e.g. Atelier Markgraf, Daimler Chrysler / Lab01, Expo 2000). Record covers, portraits, fashion shots and photo room designs were created. Mann became known for her photo impressions from the glamor and party world of the metropolises Paris, Milan and New York.

Sandra Mann (born 27 October 1970 in Groß-Gerau) is a German artist and photographer. In her cross-genre work, she deals conceptually with the relationship between people, with nature, the environment, the animal world and gender issues. Her work is characterized by research into the fundamentals of photography and visual language. In 2021, she was awarded the Goethe plaque from the city of Frankfurt am Main.