‘Being photographed is meaningful. It makes me feel seen and appreciated,’ Mats said at the time. It helped him leave the heavy burden of scoliosis behind, process everything and take courage from it.
Lenscratch Review: by Michael Honegger
“Slagman’s camera gazes at each brother in a tender but individual manner. One can almost feel the brother being photographed looking intently at the brother holding the camera. “
PhMuseum Photobook Review: by Colin Pantal
„Looking At My Brother is a story of three brothers. The eldest is the photographer, and author of this book, next comes Mats, and then there’s the youngest Jonah, each growing up ‘in a world of their own’.
Irene Berres für DER SPIEGEL
"Mit 13 wird bei Mats eine Skoliose diagnostiziert, seine Wirbelsäule ist verdreht. Er muss ein Korsett tragen, wird zweimal operiert, hadert und kämpft. Eine Geschichte in Tagebucheinträgen und Bildern"
Alice Hattrick for Granta Magazine
“Julian Slagman has been taking photographs of his younger brother for over ten years. A child grows up, becomes a teenager, a young adult. You can see the photographer grow too, experimenting with different styles and approaches, from staged portraiture to more candid snapshots of the child in play, captured from different angles, often from above (as the older and therefore initially taller brother).”
Cassie Doney for Dazed
"In Julian Slagman’s family, photography is an act of love. The German-Dutch photographer’s grandparents, Fritz and Sabine, travelled widely to shoot images for Fritz’s job as a landscape photographer; in their downtime, they took it in turns to stage photos of each other. “I have this idea that somehow they founded this idea of a relation between love and seeing. It was a relationship that was made by photography, in a sense,” Slagman says. “The camera became a bit like a member of the family.”
Lou Tsatsas for Fisheye Magazine
"Projet au long cours, Looking at My Brother déroule un récit intime faisant éclater la chronologie. Une lettre d’amour visuelle de Julian Slagman à ses frères, qu’il regarde grandir et dont il ne cesse de capturer l’évolution."
Daniel Milroy Maher for Creative Review
“The photographer’s first book follows his brothers as they journey through adolescence, and reflects his belief that “growing up does not follow a simple timeline”
Christina Töpfer für Camera Austria
"Immer wieder wirft Julian Slagman in seiner Fotografie einen Blick auf die Unbeständigkeit eines Zustands, eines Moments, eines Menschen. In seinem im Mai 2024 bei Disko Bay (Kopenhagen, DK) erschienenen Buch Looking at My Brother versammelt er im Laufe der letzten zehn Jahre entstandene Fotografien seiner beiden jüngeren Brüder Mats und Jonah. In behutsamen, oft scheinbar beiläufig aufgenommenen Fotografien dokumentierte er diese beim Erwachsenwerden und beim Aufbau einer eigenen Welt."