My Mother, My Sister, and I is a photographic book by Christa Mayer, published by Hartmann Books in 2022. The 96-page embossed hardcover measures 20 × 25 cm and contains 106 illustrations. It is a family study that examines Mayer’s relationship with her mother, combining photographs of her mother and sister, self-portraits, still lifes, landscape photographs, and video portraits. The volume is Mayer’s first book. The texts are by Ferenc Jádi, André Kirchner, and Thomas Weski. The book is published in a German/English edition, with design by Alexandra Zöller, Berlin.
The publisher describes the work as a narrative that reveals a microcosm visualizing different aspects of attachment, relationship, and family. Mayer’s approach is characterized as unsparing yet affectionate, direct, and balanced with an analytical interest in her subjects. The publisher notes that proximity and distance, strangeness and familiarity, resistance and acceptance resonate throughout the work, and that this tension addresses themes such as aging, generational conflict, and family structures.
Christa Mayer was born in 1945. She was one of the few women to establish herself within the Werkstatt für Photographie founded by Michael Schmidt in Kreuzberg, Berlin. She became known for her photographs of the locked psychiatric ward where she worked for decades as a psychotherapist. Her life’s work also includes landscape photographs, staged images, and abstract compositions. An exhibition was held at Haus am Kleistpark, Berlin, from 18 January to 13 March 2022.
