Sarah Mei Herman

Touch

I started this ongoing series during a four-month artist in residence at The Chinese European Art Center in Xiamen in 2014. I was curious about the differences but also at things that are universally recognizable: the things tying people together and the meaning of friendship and love. I photographed several young adults (mostly women) and their intimate relationships, finding my subjects in the streets of Xiamen and at the university campus. With some of them I built up a closer friendship photographing them repeatedly over time. Since my work period in 2014, I have revisited Xiamen several times. Each visit I meet up with some of the same young women again, capturing their changes over time. Going back to the same subject repeatedly is an important aspect in most of my work. During these encounters I attempt to touch upon the intimate moments of proximity between me and my subjects. I feel privileged that these subjects are willing to share their intimacy and sometimes secret relationships with me.

Photographer

Sarah Mei Herman

Sarah Mei Herman studied photography at the Royal Academy of Fine Art in The Hague, from which she received her BA in 2005. In 2010 she completed her MA in Photography at The Royal College of Art in London. Sarah Mei Herman has received several grants from Mondriaan Fund, Prins Bernard Cultuur Fund and Amsterdam Fund for the Arts. Her work has been shown internationally, among others at The National Portrait Gallery in London, at Le Chateau d’Eau in Toulouse, at JIMEI X ARLES International Photofestival and at Musée de l’Elysée in Lausanne, Switserland. Herman was a finalist for Hyères Festival of Fashion and Photography 2018 where she received the American Vintage Photography Prize 2018. That same year she also won the Rabobank Dutch National Portrait Prize 2018. In September 2019 she started working on a commissioned book about the LGBTQ community in China for Diverse Humanity, and currently her project Germano, about her Jewish family history, is exhibited at the Jewish History Museum in Amsterdam.

Herman examines the relationships and intimacy between people, what brings them together or sets them apart and how physical proximity to others is a necessity in these relationships. Throughout her work Herman has explored the gray area between friendship and love, and the constant state of becoming as young adults navigate the ambiguity of relationships into adulthood. Herman primarily works on ongoing projects photographing the same subjects over many years.

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