Lesung & Gespräch mit Simone Scharbert

In the organizer's words:

Reading & talk with Simone Scharbert, author of "Für Anna. An Exposure"

Anna Atkins, born in Tonbridge, England in 1799 and died in Halstead in 1871, is now considered one of the first female photographers. With her tireless work, she made an important contribution to the science of the Victorian era - and yet was hardly recognized. At a time when memory, documentation and illustration were almost exclusively reserved for painting and illustration, she devoted herself to a simple manual process that created new possibilities for imaging with the help of naked light and UV-sensitive coated paper. The resulting cyanotypes are now regarded as the forerunners of later photography.

In her third prose text, Simone Scharbert continues her project of making female biographies visible. She tells how Anna Atkins pushed ahead with her photographic and scientific work against many odds, carrying with her all the losses of her life, questions of memory and exposure. Quietly interspersed are small insights into the botanical and colonial history of the Victorian era.

Simone Scharbert, born in Aichach in 1974, studied political science, philosophy and literature in Munich, Augsburg and Vienna, before completing a doctorate in political science. She lives and works as a freelance author and lecturer in Erftstadt. Her poetry debut "Erzähl mir vom Atmen" was published in 2017, followed by her novel debut "du, alice" in 2019 and "Rosa in Grau. A visitation".