{"id":79952,"date":"2026-10-20T12:07:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-20T10:07:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/visualjournalism.de\/?post_type=magazin&p=79952"},"modified":"2026-10-23T17:53:43","modified_gmt":"2026-10-23T15:53:43","slug":"im-fine-thanks","status":"publish","type":"magazin","link":"https:\/\/visualjournalism.de\/en\/magazine\/award-winners\/im-fine-thanks\/","title":{"rendered":"I’m fine, thanks"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n
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\n\tAward winners<\/a><\/div>\r\n

\r\n I’m fine, thanks. <\/h2>\r\n\r\n
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What happens when you are radically honest \u2013 even with yourself? Jana Junker<\/strong><\/a> set out to find out. In her self-portraits, she shows herself unvarnished: herself, her body and her illness.<\/p>\n <\/div>\r\n \r\n

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\r\n\r\n \r\n \r\n \"Jana\r\n\r\n <\/a>\r\n \r\n <\/figure>\r\n\r\n <\/div>\r\n \r\n <\/div>\r\n\r\n \r\n
\r\n \"Self-portrait\r\n <\/figure>\r\n\r\n \r\n \r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m Jana. <\/strong>I have lived with an eating disorder and reactive depressive episodes for many years. For a long time, not even the people closest to me knew. To the outside world, I\u2019m the cheerful one. And yes, I love to laugh, but showing only one side of myself takes an incredible amount of energy. With this photo project, I am choosing radical honesty \u2013 with myself, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In selecting my pictures, I have deliberately avoided a chronological order, because healing is rarely linear and I am still in the middle of it. The whole process is marked by immense shame, but I want to give others in the same situation courage: you can show all of yourself without the world falling apart!<\/p>\n\n\n\n \n\n

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About the project<\/h5>\n <\/span>\n <\/div>\n\n
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With \u2018I\u2019m fine, thanks\u2019, Jana Junker reached the final of the VGH Photo Prize<\/a> 2026. She writes about her project:<\/p>\n

\u2018When I took a semester off last year for family reasons, my camera became my constant companion. Since mid-October 2025, I have been recording my life with it: I document my immediate surroundings, take at least one self-portrait every day, write a reflection and choose a song that feels right to me.\u2019<\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n\n\n

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\n \"Self-portrait\n \n <\/div>\n\n \n <\/figure>\n\n\n\n\n
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Wanting to lose weight<\/h2>\n\n \n <\/div>\n\n \n\n\n\n\n

I want to lose weight again. Saying it feels like something I ought to apologise for. At a time when body positivity is being celebrated \u2013 and yes, I celebrate it too \u2013 wanting to change can sometimes seem like a betrayal: of the movement, of the \u2018right\u2019 self-image. But my body is not a manifesto. It is not a statement and not a symbol. I often find fat bodies beautiful. I admire them, their presence, their audacity, their quiet revolt against the norm. But I don\u2019t find my own body beautiful. And I think it is a dangerous oversimplification to pretend that I have to. Perhaps that is the small blind spot of the body positivity movement. That it sometimes turns shame into a pose. That it talks about self-love but rarely about the system that sabotages it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since puberty, I have been at war with myself. With my hunger, my appetite, my desire, my excess. I have tried everything: acceptance, therapy, control, leniency, cynicism. None of it has brought me peace or more freedom. And I know that, statistically, I lost this battle before I had even started. A British study followed more than 176,000 overweight people over ten years. The result: only one in 124 women permanently reaches a normal weight. Among obese people, the odds fall to one in 677. And even those who do lose weight rarely keep it off. Within five years, 78 per cent have put it all back on. It\u2019s called the \u2018yo-yo effect\u2019, as if it were a game.<\/p>\n\n\n\r\n

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