Gomma Photography Grant 2025
I am not like me
Photographer
Lina Czerny
I am not like me
14 Feb, 2026
We are very proud to award the Gomma Grant 2025 Documentary Prize to Lina Czerny for her compelling project I am not like me.
In I am not like me, Lina Czerny explores the body as a site of transformation, performance, and self-definition. Moving across a wide range of social environments — from beauty pageants and bodybuilding competitions to dominatrix studios, brothels, and operating rooms — the project examines how identity is shaped through appearance.
The portraits reveal individuals who actively construct their image through makeup, cosmetic procedures, fitness, tattoos, and other forms of bodily modification. Rather than judging these transformations, Czerny approaches them as acts of agency and self-expression.
As the artist writes, «identity is not fixed, but fluid — a process of becoming.»
At the same time, the work acknowledges the complex forces surrounding contemporary beauty culture. Technology, social media, and capitalism increasingly shape the pursuit of the “better self,” turning bodies into curated and marketable surfaces.
Through her photographs — and through the intimate access she builds with the people she portrays — Czerny reflects on the fragile balance between personal autonomy and external ideals.
Who defines what beauty is, and at what cost?
About the photographer
Lina Czerny
Lina Czerny (b. 1993) is a freelance photographer based in Berlin. She currently studies photography at the Ostkreuzschule für Fotografie and holds a Master’s degree in Comparative Arts & Media Studies from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.Her work explores social and documentary themes, focusing on identity, bodily representation, and the cultural construction of beauty. Through carefully composed portraits and observational imagery, she examines how individuals shape their appearance and perform identity within contemporary visual culture.Czerny’s work has been exhibited internationally, including at the Sony World Photography Awards exhibition in London and at EMOP Berlin. She has also been shortlisted for the British Journal of Photography Portrait of Humanity.
