Daniela Müller-Brunke: Istabane

”Without love, there is nothing. Love is the thread holding life together” – based in both Berlin and London, photographer Daniela Müller-Brunke was born in Namibia and raised in South Africa. Daniela’s work is very much influenced by growing up in Africa and traveling extensively as a child. Shot in the southern part of the continent, her series, Istabane, is a key part of our Visible Love exhibition as well as Container Love’s first print magazine, the Visibility Issue. Daniela’s pictures show yet another overlooked aspect of visibility, the power of local communities and what they can teach us about the importance of standing up for each other. “This story – as so many others – was not planned. It just fell into my lap, and it needed to be told. With these pictures, I want to show that there are different ways of loving, and different ways of being. It’s the story of a teacher who gets mobbed by students, the story of the person who wants to get married but can’t find a priest who is willing to perform the ceremony, the story of the waiter who cannot take the late shift because of the risk of walking home in the dark. I want to give a voice to a community that often lives in fear for their lives, that struggles to lead normal lives only because they are being seen as different.”

Photography Daniela Müller-Brunke, Talents Misha, Siyanonga Julian Mfundisi, Keagan, Shenon Maarman