Susanne Reuling explores identity, memory, and connection through collaborative portraits and personal stories gathered across Brazil.

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I seek what connects us beyond location, background, or circumstance. My series, Stories in Light Brazil, is a long-term project through which I travel throughout Brazil, meeting people from diverse cultural and social backgrounds. Through their lives and stories, I aim to create a portrait of the country.

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My process starts with carefully listening to someone’s story. From that encounter, I create two images that together tell something about a person’s life — one that connects more intimately with the individual, and another that relates to their surrounding world.

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Alongside each other, these images tell a story in light. I never observe from a distance. Through light, composition, and proximity to shape the image around what already exists. It’s not just about capturing a scene — it’s something we shape together. Working in both colour and black and white, I explore how identity is formed through lived experience, memory and personal surroundings.

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Alongside photography, I collect fragments of conversations and personal stories, bringing together image and text as part of my visual storytelling practice. My work explores what becomes visible when someone is genuinely seen.

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My work explores what becomes visible when someone is genuinely seen.

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About

Susanne Reuling is a Dutch photographer and visual storyteller driven by a search for what connects us beyond place, background, or circumstance. Working closely with the people she photographs, she creates intimate visual stories rooted in conversation, proximity and lived experience. Through photography and written story fragments, her work explores identity, humanity and the shared realities that connect people across different cultural and social contexts.

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www.susannereuling.com