Together we watch the waves is an intimate, poetic, and documentary photographic long-term project about the friendship between Fibi Afloe, a Ghanaian photographer, and me, a German photographer, Amelie Koerbs. It explores belonging and reflects on collaboration and care in the image-making process. At the heart of the project is the handmade book, selfpublished in an edition of 10 copies. Koerbs combines digital laser prints with small-format analog darkroom prints – contrasting the different tonal ranges of both printing processes, from sharp details to haziness and obscurity. The book’s design is full of small details that become visible through careful looking, and an attunement to the sound of the pages turning invites the viewer to slow down, join the photographers by the sea, and watch the waves.

Amelie Koerbs is a photographer who currently moves between Germany, Ghana, and Finland. Koerbs’ photography is at the intersection of the documentary and the poetic, made with small¬ and large¬format analogue black-and-white film. She is curious about people and places, especially women, and their interpersonal and ecological relationships. Photography allows her to listen, take her time, and transform stories into pictures that are intimate and silent yet say much. Through slow, hands-on darkroom printing and bookmaking, Koerbs develops a deeper engagement with her photographs, which become tactile objects that invite new ways of looking, opening up further photographic encounters. Koerbs also engages in research, writing, archiving, and knowledge production, with an interest in global histories of photography, particularly for women and the African continent.

Social Media Handles

@ameliekoerbs.photography / @fibi_afloe