Out in the Countryside: Rainer Zerback captures structural change through his camera lens. His photo series Metamorphosis vividly illustrates the upheaval taking place in rural areas.
Rainer Zerback, Metamorphosis, ed. by Rainer Zerback, Kai Hohenfeld, Kunstmuseum Albstadt, with texts by: Günter Baumann, Annett Steinführer, Deutsch & English, Kerber Verlag, Berlin 2026 → order now
Metamorphosis is a photography project that focuses on rural areas as both places to live and places of creative expression. In his striking photographs, Rainer Zerback captures the social, cultural, and scenic dimensions of these areas. Using the Swabian Alb as an example, the photographer illustrates the profound yet successful structural transformation of this region.
Rainer Zerback, Neubausiedlung, 2024
Main Setting
Zerback has long explored the interplay between space, society, and time. His photo series Metamorphosis has now been compiled into a book that reveals an artistic and analytical approach. The photographs combine documentation with an aesthetic visual language. Thematically, the range of subjects extends from agriculture to religion and customs, through the handling of the past and memory, to infrastructure, mobility, technology, and tourism. Zerback’s photographs make it clear that rural areas are not merely places of retreat, but central venues for social negotiation processes and forward-looking developments.
Rainer Zerback, Solapark, 2023
Ambivalence in Rural Areas
The photographs are neither pure documentation nor mere aestheticization. Rather, they open up a space in which the ambivalences of rural change are condensed: progress and loss, tradition and new beginnings, familiarity and strangeness. Metamorphosis is thus more than a photographic inventory—it is a visual statement on the question of how we want to live in the future amid the tensions between nature, culture, and the economy.
Rainer Zerback, Metamorphosis
ed. by Rainer Zerback, Kai Hohenfeld, Kunstmuseum Albstadt
with texts by: Günter Baumann, Annett Steinführer
Hardcover, 30 x 24 cm
150 pages, 75 coloured Fotos
Design: Frankgeorgy.design, Köln
German & English
Kerber Verlag, Berlin 2026
ISBN 978-3-7356-1086-7
Rainer Zerback, Climbing 2023
