Ulla Deventer is a visual artist, born 1984 in Germany and based in Ghana, where she is doing a Phd at KNUST, Kumasi.

She holds a Diploma in Visual Communication from the HFBK Hamburg (2012) and a MAFA from the KASK Antwerp (2014), where she was also a research candidate from 2018 to 2020. In 2019, Ulla became part of TIME-LABS: Cuba Photography Missions, a research project in Havana, Cuba, supported by VLIR-UOS Belgium.

Deventer’s work has been nominated for the Horlait Depsens price in 2014. In 2017, she was selected as one of the TIFF Talent, the Lens Culture Emerging Talents, the PORTRAITS Hellerau Photography Award and PHM Women Photographers Grant. In 2018, she has been shortlisted for the CAP Price, in 2019, she was nominated for the UNSEEN Talent Award, as well as featured as the “Ones to Watch” in the BJP.

Most recently, Ulla is shortlisted for the European Month of Photography (EMOP) Arendt Award. Her work has further been supported by VG Bildkunst and the Rudolf Augstein Stiftung and has been exhibited at several international photo festivals; the Encontros Da Imagen Braga, Darmstädter Tage der Fotografie, Rencontres Montpellier, CIRCULATION(S) Paris, Athens Fotofestival, among others, she further exhibited at several international art and non-art spaces.

Her multidisciplinary and research-based work is driven by her fascination of the interconnections of intimacy, control and violence. She investigates our universal longing to bond and learning from interspecies connection. Her work is shaped by her long-term collaborations with female sex workers, survivors of domestic violence, and the close connection she has had to horses since childhood.

Furthermore, Ulla is founder of THE SIX FREEDOMS, a cross-disciplinary network on horse welfare and social violence prevention.

Her artworks are visible at Arendt House in the frame of the EMOP (European Month of Photography) 2023 and the exhibition ‘Rethinking Identity’. She is nominee for the EMOP Arendt Award 2023.