Gomma Photography Grant 2025
Democracy Dies in Daylight
Photographer
Rafael Heygster
Democracy Dies in Daylight
14 Feb, 2026
Rafael Heygster’s series examines the self-staging and growing influence of right-wing movements in Germany. Through images of rallies, election events, and extremist gatherings, he portrays both leading figures and their supporters.The so-called “New Right” cultivates a carefully constructed public image through social media, speeches, and its own media platforms—presenting itself as the voice of the “common people” and as a legitimate democratic force. Yet its rhetoric and strategies increasingly shift public discourse toward exclusion and polarization, amplifying division and normalizing hate. Between 2022 and 2024, right-wing extremist crimes in Germany rose by approximately 62 percent.Heygster’s precisely lit, cinematic visual language lays bare the aesthetic strategies of this movement, prompting reflection on the power of political imagery and the vulnerability of democratic values. Although rooted in the German context, the series points to a broader phenomenon unfolding across Europe and the United States, where similar movements gain traction through comparable visual and emotional tactics.
About the photographer
Rafael Heygster
In my home country Germany has officially been in peace for more than 70 years.The photographic work „I died 22 times“ shows and questions the way our culture deals with "warfare" outside real battlefields.War does not only manifest itself as a military conflict on battlefields with clear physical fronts, but appears more abstractly in our society in various places.“I died 22 times“ deals with the question "Where does war begin?"The series combines motifs from different scenarios.Images of weapons fairs (war as a business) are combined with motives of Airsoft, a dubious leisure activity (war as a game).Both scenarios have one thing in common: "War" is staged as something entertaining and at the same time harmless. Nobody dies. War is thereby made consumable.I advocate peace. With my pictures I want to contribute to the question, at which point the social acceptance actually begins, to start wars. I hope that the recipients of my pictures think about their own position on the topic.I continue to take pictures of this work and regularly create new chapters. Each scenario shown is photographed as a single chapter and also works as a standalone reportage.
