If a Flower Bloomed in a Dark Room, Would You Trust It? follows the online rabbit holes developing from two mainstream social media trends related to self-improvement: fitness and spirituality. The converging narratives—Repeat After Me and Bereitschaft explore radicalization from the perspectives of the body and the spirit as they are amplified by platforms like TikTok: on the one hand, the militaristic pursuit of physical perfection, as reflected in the popularization among young boys of Arno Breker’s 1939 statue Bereitschaft; on the other, the quest for spiritual awakening and the attempt to rise above societal structures, combined with the belief in being the “chosen one.” The book builds on extensive visual research into the image rhetorics used by far-right political groups online, especially those employing positive visual language to convey hate messages. Jakob Ganslmeier and Ana Zibelnik are an artist duo who collaborate on photography and video projects that center on the creation of youth identity, particularly the influence of extreme ideologies on young people. Elisa Medde is a photography editor, curator and writer. Between 2012–23, she served as Editor-in-Chief of Foam Magazine. In 2023 she received the Royal Photographic Society Award for outstanding achievement in photographic publishing.
