Kristin Schnell is a German photographic artist based at the Baltic Sea. Before developing her artistic practice, she worked for many years as a freelance photographer, primarily in children’s and youth fashion. Her nomination for the LensCulture Masterclass in 2019/20 marked a turning point and the beginning of her work as a photographic artist.

Schnell’s work explores the complex relationship between humans and animals, freedom and confinement, and our increasing separation from the natural world. At the centre of her practice are exotic birds from difficult circumstances that now live in a large outdoor aviary in her garden. Bred in captivity for generations, they embody a contradiction that runs through her work: birds are symbols of freedom, yet their lives have been profoundly shaped by human intervention.

Within the aviary, Schnell constructs artificial, intensely coloured spaces using painted wooden structures, transparent materials, glass, mirrors, flowers and natural light. She determines the initial conditions of the image, but then deliberately relinquishes control. The birds move freely, while sunlight, wind, shadows and reflections become active elements in the photographic process. In this encounter between constructed space and living beings, her work explores the tension between nature and artificiality, control and autonomy.

Her photographs are created in real time and are not digitally composited.

Schnell’s work has been part of the permanent collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) since 2023 and was exhibited there in Nature on Notice. In 2024, ARTE dedicated a 25-minute artist documentary to Schnell and her photographic practice. She was selected for Photolucida Critical Mass Top 50 in both 2024 and 2025.

Her first monograph, Of Cages and Feathers, was published by Kehrer Verlag in 2024. Her work is also included in Aviary – The Bird in Contemporary Photography, edited by William A. Ewing and Danaé Panchaud and published by Thames & Hudson in 2025.

Recent exhibitions include VOGELFREI?, a solo exhibition at Kunstverein Konstanz, and a solo exhibition with Michael Reid Gallery Berlin/Sydney in 2026; Nature on Notice at LACMA; the Photolucida Critical Mass Top 50 exhibition at Atlanta Photography Group; and The High Life: Contemporary Photography and the Birds at Marie Selby Botanical Gardens, Sarasota.

Schnell is currently longlisted for the Women in Art Prize 2026 and will be a Beyer Artist in Residence at The Society of the Four Arts in Palm Beach in March 2027.