MENNO VAN DER MEULEN

 

ABOUT ME

I photograph the parts of the body and the parts of the night that aren’t allowed to speak in daylight.

Berlin-based since 2022, I explore rawness, taboos, and secrecy through photography that moves between intimacy and power, instinct and control.

I graduated from the Photo Academy in Amsterdam in 2014, where I developed a distinctive visual language rooted in rawness, taboos, and secrecy. Since then, I have spent over thirteen years shaping my photographic practice, evolving from instinctive experimentation into a fully conceptual approach to image-making.

In 2022, I relocated to Berlin, where I am now based. The city’s unique blend of freedom, intensity, and artistic openness has deeply influenced my work. Berlin’s thriving BDSM and underground nightlife scenes—particularly the iconic KitKat Club—have become a major source of inspiration and an ongoing setting for my photography.

My first photobook, published in 2010, captured the vibrant energy of the Zwarte Cross festival in the Netherlands. Shortly after, I began studying at the Photo Academy in Amsterdam, graduating in 2014. That same year, I self-published The Final Cut, my exam project—a photobook exploring the BDSM world through staged imagery centered on themes of Bondage and Discipline, Domination and Submission, and Sadism and Masochism.

Over a decade later, My Perverted Legacy marks the culmination of this journey. The book revisits the world of BDSM but expands further into the realms of pornography and swinging—subjects I have documented over the past ten years. Conceived and completed after my move to Berlin, this third photobook reflects not only the continuation of those themes but also the freedom and intensity that the city embodies.

Menno van der Meulen zelfportret