“+41” (2025)
editorial // personal project

+41 is a photographic series by Liam Šandera that follows groups of young people within a massive concrete building. The focus is on human contact: being together in a space, in the transition between inside and outside. The scenes take place in a semi-enclosed environment, partly outdoors, partly inside the structure.

The title “+41,” inspired by Switzerland’s international dialing code, alludes to the ambivalence of digital communication. Our technological ways of connecting are more diverse than ever. Yet the personal dimension of these connections seems to be fading. Closeness and distance, contact and isolation overlay one another in subtle tension.

A pale filter lies over the images and reinforces this effect. At first glance, the photographs appear monochromatic. Only upon closer inspection do colors reveal themselves: in the clothing, in the surroundings. This symbolizes the distant yet intimate connection we create with one another through phone numbers.

The raw concrete of the setting underscores the coolness and isolation that often accompany communication mediated by technology. In this way, “+41” becomes a quiet but compelling reflection on closeness, identity, and the ways in which we are connected.

“We Were So Online” (2025)
editorial // featured in FACES Magazine

We Were So Online in FACES

The 2000s comeback isn’t only about fashion or music. It’s a memory of a world that existed before hyper-surveillance, climate anxiety, and identity overload took over our lives. It’s a longing for a moment when the future still felt bright and full of possibility, not fear.

I wanted to show the way young people today are reaching back to a past we never even fully lived, trying to find comfort and freedom in it. Style, sexuality, and nostalgia become tools of resistance, ways to reclaim a sense of control in a world that often feels chaotic and uncertain and most of all, scary.

I made this editorial with the idea of turning the past into a safe space, a world where self-expression isn’t policed or performative, but honest and playful. It’s about using the aesthetics of a supposedly „easier“ time to make sense of this complicated present.

There’s this feeling people are chasing. It makes sense that a lot of young people are kind of escaping into that time. Back then, everything seemed lighter, more carefree, like the future was full of possibility. The y2k era wasn’t perfect, but it had this playful, experimental energy. People were trying things, mixing styles, and not taking themselves too seriously.

That sense of freedom is missing today, so we’re bringing it back in our own way. It’s not just nostalgia, it’s a way of finding optimism again.

It isn’t about going back - it’s about remembering how it felt.

“Overconsumption” (2025)
editorial // personal project

The culture of more, more and more is a symptom of a world where constant stimulation has replaced genuine connection and where desire is manufactured synthetically faster than we can even name it. Overconsumption is a coping mechanism in an world full of burnouts, ecological collapse, and endless comparison.

I wanted to show how our generation drifts between craving and overwhelm, numbed by the very things we’re told will make us feel alive. Like clothes and accessories. We buy to deafen the silence, to calm the anxiety, to signal who we are before we even know ourselves. Objects become distractions. They promise comfort, but often just add weight.

This editorial was born from the idea of turning that chaos into something visible: unpacking the emotional clutter behind the physical clutter. It’s about exposing the glossy illusion and finding honesty underneath it. By exaggerating the aesthetics of excess, I wanted to reclaim them, to make space for reflection rather than impulse. A reminder that in a world telling us to consume endlessly, slowing down can be the most radical act.