THE THINGS YOU SAID.
We all carry them: words or phrases that echo in our minds, that make us ruminate and, over time, become a part of us. Just as every statement in this book was once a fleeting remark – meant for the moment – yet left its trace.
Amina Stella Steiner’s first photobook is a quiet but persistent book about identity, vulnerability, and social conditioning.
Edition of 300.
hand-painted softcover with embossing
132 pages
17 x 24 cm
selfpublished
year | 2025
language | English
ISBN | 978-3-200-10124-1
Do you remember that one phrase?
spoken once. remembered. still.
We like to think words are simple, that they hold meanings we all agree upon. But what is said – and what is heard – is rarely the same. A simple phrase carries intention, memory, longing, and personal interpretation.
Depending on the life it falls into, meaning and impact shift.
Twelve people have shared their stories for the book. Based on the sentences that have accompanied them, we follow the traces from the initial reaction – doubt, anger and shame – through carrying it with them to the moment when meaning is allowed to shift.
The design makes the connection between word and person tangible: to see a portrait in its entirety, the text layer must be lifted – a small physical gesture that embodies what is often so difficult in real life: separating words from identity.
the things you said. is an open conversation – and an invitation: to look closer, at how we weave external views into our own – and to take responsibility, not only for our own story, but also the one of people close to us.
