Thames & Hudson presents: Landscapes of Memory, Stories Beyond the Surface. In Conversation: Steffi Reimers & FOAM curator Aya Musa
Contour Gallery, Steffi Reimers, Gunshot punctures ,2023. Courtesy Contour Gallery
Photographer Steffi Reimers and FOAM curator Aya Musa will go in conversation about Guilty Grounds, a project that explores how landscapes can carry traces of violence, memory and unresolved histories. What does a landscape remember when it has witnessed a crime?
In 2023, Steffi Reimers had her first solo exhibition at FOAM called Guilty Grounds. The presentation of new talent and the emerging avant-garde remains one of the central pillars of FOAM’s programme, and Reimers’ exhibition became one of its most successful talent presentations in recent years. For the project, she travelled to Calabria in southern Italy to explore the history and kidnapping practices of the ’Ndrangheta. Drawing on her background as a forensic photographer, she photographed landscapes marked by violence, disappearance and control, using several visual strategies and techniques, including forensic light, to examine traces not immediately visible to the eye.
Aya Musa
Aya Musa (Netherlands, 1979) is curator at FOAM. He worked as a journalist and photographer in conflict zones in the past. In his work, Aya combines social developments with new exhibition forms, where photography is not subordinate to the context from which it arises, but at the same time never loses sight of this context. In this way, he gives photography a stage that goes beyond existing clichés. Since 2001, he has combined his work in the Netherlands with empirical ethnographic research into the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent.
Steffi Reimers
Steffi Reimers (Netherlands, 1995) is a Dutch photographer based in Hoorn, the Netherlands. Her work explores themes of transience, history, and loss, focusing on hidden narratives and the relationship between people, memory, and landscape. In 2021, she graduated from the University of Applied Photography in Amsterdam with Aftermath, made during a two-month stay in Srebrenica documenting the aftermath of the Yugoslav civil war. The project was exhibited at the Nederlands Fotomuseum in Rotterdam and published as her debut photobook. In 2022, she was selected as one of the GUP New Dutch Photography Talents. In 2023, Reimers started Guilty Grounds, exploring the history of the ‘Ndrangheta in Calabria, Italy. The project became her first solo exhibition at FOAM Amsterdam and was published as her second photobook. In 2025, the exhibition travelled to the Beiqiu Museum of Contemporary Art in Nanjing, China. Since 2026, Reimers has been represented by Contour Gallery and participated at Art Rotterdam. In 2025, Reimers began At Road’s End, a new project in Alaska. The work explores the symbiotic relationship between humans and overwhelming nature, set against the vast and largely untouched wilderness.
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