About her series ‘Sub Rosa’, Birthe comments:

'“Sub Rosa reminds us of a time, a stage in one’s life which could not have been more intimate, and nevertheless exists as a romanticized blur in our mind today. No period in life is so comprehensively enriched with emotions, frustration and high expectations as the stage between our youth and adulthood. Adolescence, the loss of prolonged innocence and the desire to belong and to be different at the same time, seems to be an unconquerable obstacle in the journey of discovering our identity.

Today, all this seems far away even though most of us have hardly ever experienced more intense times of excessive self-reflection. We helplessly realize that access to the world of the youth - and sometimes even our kids - is often surprisingly restricted.”

These beautiful portraits accompanied by evocative stills make us reflect about our own experiences and recreate intimate stories that we thought forever closed. In the end, as Birthe mentions: “They refer to furtive things and secrets that want to stay hidden.”

All images © Birthe Piontek

Birthe's work was featured in our Eleventh Printed Issue published in 2018 that you can purchase here.