Biography

Stephan Takkides is a Cypriot-English artist who emigrated to Germany in the mid-2000s. He works with photography and video as well as narrative text and web projects. His practice is characterized by long-term topographical studies, combining storytelling with images. It is marked by a subtle humour, leaving it unclear whether it is documentary or spoof.

In 2024, he received the BMW Photo Award for his three-channel video installation Naturalization. The work was completed in 2021 as his graduation project from a Meisterschüler programme at the Academy of Fine Art, Leipzig where he studied in the classes of Joachim Brohm and Ines Schaber. After completing the programme in 2021, he was awarded the NEUSTART KULTUR Kickstarter Grant by the Stiftung Kunstfonds.

His past residencies include a three-month project at the Cyprus University of Technology in 2017, where he conducted photographic research on empty suburban land. This expanded on his work at the Phytorio residency in 2016, where he used both video and still photography to investigate the contemporary townscape of Nicosia by following outdated and error-ridden colonial maps.

In addition to his Meisterschüler certificate, he holds an MFA from the Transart Institute (University of Plymouth) and a BA from Chelsea College, London. He lives and works in Leipzig, Germany.