There is maybe a handful of people in my life who I would board a plane to any destination with, no questions asked. You know, the kind of adventure where things can and will go wrong, you lose your sh*t and start to wonder if "unconditional love" isn't actually an oxymoron.

Martha is one of them, and no, it is not.

Personal project
China, Myanmar, Indonesia, Australia, 2014-2015

Over the course of that one year, I got to know my sister on a level that was not accessible to me back home in our own little worlds of comfortable Vienna. Somehow her courage, maturity and strength were lost on me before.

With every mile travelled I learned how to appreciate her more outside of the roles we used to play in our detrimental family dynamics.

It helped, that we both had just decided to turn our lives upside down so we can make room for new, kinder versions of ourselves. And boy, did she become so much more than that.

I like to think that at least some of the things I admire her for, she picked up as a consequence of having me as a big brother to look up to. But today, there is no doubt who's the one looking up to whom.

Countless trains, boats, busses, planes, taxis, motor bikes, tandem bikes, rickshaws, helpful guides and bad decisions brought us to unknown places: magical at times, somber at others. Along the way, I was taking heaps of portraits of my sister.