Who I Am & the Dreams I Follow

My name is Sanja, it means “little dream”. Growing up I lived in costumes, masks and most of all worlds of creativity and imagination.

My creative path as a young adult began in costume design at the Residenztheater guided by my fascination for transformation, storytelling and human expression. From there, I moved to Paris, working backstage at fashion week — a place of beauty and contradictions. I loved the artistry, but I couldn’t ignore the truth behind the industry.

It pushed me towards thinking “How can I contribute to a change?” - so i decided to start an apprentership in womens tailoring - where I was mistreated right from the start. I ended up hating it all together but I’ved pushed through till the end anyways, knowing that I would never try to work in this field ever again.

I still wanted to learn more about how my work could contribute to a more circular and conscious way of creating, consuming and thinking and that is why I eventually started studying Communication Design with a sub focus on fashion.

I had just graduated at designschool, when I stumbled over a job in the costume department in film- which I always wanted to try out, since I really liked working in costumes at Residenztheater. I applied and got the job. I had the best time on set and found one of my closest friends while working together in the same department, but again
I did not resonate with the lifestyle of the business.

It let me to questioning where I was going in my life. And than I realised one little thing, that I was missing the whole time: No matter how many worlds I tried on, one thing kept returning to me with quiet persistence: the camera. I ended up documenting people and memories every spare minute I had everywhere I went.