About Henry Landers


Thank you for stopping by.
My name is Henry Landers. I was born and grew up in East Berlin. But psychologically, through media and daily news, I grew up with West German TV and radio, such as SFB, ARD, ZDF, Die Dritten Programme, RIAS, and AFN Berlin from the American Forces Network. I didn’t become an artist right away, and back then I didn’t even know what it actually meant to be an artist.

First, I did vocational training as a metalworker, learning how to work with techniques such as cutting, welding, forging, turning and also learned how water distribution works in a city.

After a serious motorbike accident at the age of 19, I discovered photography as a language. The inner silence of my childhood and youth dissolved. I began to take photographs, just as cavemen once painted their drawings on stone to recognize the invisible, to reassure themselves of their place in the world, to remember the past, and to anticipate the future.

Later, during my engineering studies in "Water Management Technology", I learned to think on a geological scale in the subject of hydrogeology. I became more familiar with inanimate mineral rock. I also gained an understanding of how large-scale urban systems work while I was working for several years in the administration of Berlin’s water supply and wastewater treatment services.

However, I also had to complete 1.5 years of mandatory military service as a construction engineer in the NVA (National People’s Army of the GDR) in Potsdam. That time showed me just how fragile and vulnerable the civilian sphere is within each of us, and how much it needs to be protected.

After that, I left the state-owned economic world of urban infrastructure and became a black-and-white photo lab technician and photographer.

Then events came thick and fast. Eighteen months later, the Berlin Wall fell. The world became bigger, and the possibilities were almost limitless. I became a marketing specialist and advertising photographer lived in Berlin, Hamburg, and Italy, but later returned to Berlin.

As a photographic artist and for my international art project “X Capitals,” I traveled the world and gathered inspiration from many cultures, which, combined with my fascination for the physics of things and events, found its way into the worlds of my novels. Writing opened up many worlds full of stories to me in a way that photography never could.

I love walking through the Humboldt Grove every morning, which allowed me to discover the three main characters of my novels and the fantastic world of the Tamanaken—and, incidentally, to establish a connection to Alexander von Humboldt. – During my research for “Three Girls Save the World—How It Began,” I became aware of the tragic fate of Diesterweg High School.


Thank you for stopping by.
My name is Henry Landers. I was born and grew up in East Berlin. But psychologically, through media and daily news, I grew up with West German TV and radio, such as SFB, ARD, ZDF, Die Dritten Programme, RIAS, and AFN Berlin from the American Forces Network. I didn’t become an artist right away, and back then I didn’t even know what it actually meant to be an artist.

First, I did vocational training as a metalworker, learning how to work with techniques such as cutting, welding, forging, turning and also learned how water distribution works in a city.

After a serious motorbike accident at the age of 19, I discovered photography as a language. The inner silence of my childhood and youth dissolved. I began to take photographs, just as cavemen once painted their drawings on stone to recognize the invisible, to reassure themselves of their place in the world, to remember the past, and to anticipate the future.

Later, during my engineering studies in "Water Management Technology", I learned to think on a geological scale in the subject of hydrogeology. I became more familiar with inanimate mineral rock. I also gained an understanding of how large-scale urban systems work while I was working for several years in the administration of Berlin’s water supply and wastewater treatment services.

However, I also had to complete 1.5 years of mandatory military service as a construction engineer in the NVA (National People’s Army of the GDR) in Potsdam. That time showed me just how fragile and vulnerable the civilian sphere is within each of us, and how much it needs to be protected.

After that, I left the state-owned economic world of urban infrastructure and became a black-and-white photo lab technician and photographer.

Then events came thick and fast. Eighteen months later, the Berlin Wall fell. The world became bigger, and the possibilities were almost limitless. I became a marketing specialist and advertising photographer lived in Berlin, Hamburg, and Italy, but later returned to Berlin.

As a photographic artist and for my international art project “X Capitals,” I traveled the world and gathered inspiration from many cultures, which, combined with my fascination for the physics of things and events, found its way into the worlds of my novels. Writing opened up many worlds full of stories to me in a way that photography never could.

I love walking through the Humboldt Grove every morning, which allowed me to discover the three main characters of my novels and the fantastic world of the Tamanaken—and, incidentally, to establish a connection to Alexander von Humboldt. – During my research for “Three Girls Save the World—How It Began,” I became aware of the tragic fate of Diesterweg High School.