Petra Barth grew up in a rural village in postwar Germany, where she, her parents and her sisters lived on a small piece of land and nature was untamed: she climbed trees, floated on tyres in big puddles of rainwater, picked wild blueberries. Her mother would hang the clothes for the next morning on the closet door — how was she to know that they threw ominous shadows that danced across the room, intensified by the moonlight through the tiny window? “Maybe that is why I am fascinated by shadow and light.”

At sunrise, inspired by tales from faraway countries told at bedtime, the sisters would roam the land looking for adventure. “Maybe that is why I am drawn to the countryside, and to the unknown.” The Anderswo project started in 2004 with a trip to Nicaragua, followed by extended visits to South America and then the rest of the world: what began as an intuitive process of exploring foreign countries and listening to the people living there turned into a deeply emotional experience.