Photography is my tool to dissect reality and its so called truths through the creation of imagery. Our western society is a product of excess and privilege. We’re drowning in choices and decisions that have to be made in order for us to construct our identity and lifestyles. The material world plays an incredible important role in this process. That’s exactly where my interest for creation lies: how do we use our surroundings, objects and ‘free’ choice in order to construct ourselves?

My working process is characterised by the construction of scenes and sets with self made props in combination with intensive post production processes. All of this creates the opportunity for a new world to come into existence. I like to call my photos: dumb photos of a new world.

The dumb tells us a lot about what we perceive as of value and what we perceive worthy or unworthy of investing in. It lays bare preconceived notions of how we are taught to see the world. It’s a sensibility in communication which gives the opportunity to talk about important matters in ways that are accessible.

ARTIST STATEMENT

I'm very grateful for how this school year has progressed. It was an intense time full of unforeseeable setbacks. The quarantine time has made all of us masters of adjusting. Adjusting to online learning, adjusting to not having access, adjusting to being on our own all
the time and adjusting to limited resources.

This time forced me to process. Instead of going from idea to result, it was going from idea to ideas of how to go about it to result, to re-do, to final result. I realised it’s important to take time. Time to spend with your work. One on one. I used to be afraid of that time. I always wanted everything to be perfect in that exact moment. I didn’t want to spend time on redoing things. Doing it over or coming up with new ideas was not an option. I wanted to nail it immediately. The lifestyle of the quarantine gave me the time to respect my own process. To give myself the time to actually re-do things. To rethink ideas, without fearing to lag behind on the next assignment that was to come. It taught me to trust on my intuition, but more so, to give my intuition the time to manifest itself.

This whole process led to me thinking about my work and practice. What message do I want to spread? Who do I want to be as an artist? Around what topics do I like to work? Yes I am queer, yes I am non binary, but do I want my work to be about only that? No, I want my work to be about connection. How do we as humans in a society of privilege and inequality manage to connect to each other? My work has been about connection more and more so. Maybe because I personally do not always have access to this connection? It could be. But i know for sure that we as humans need connection to stay alive. And that’s what my work is about.

This semester has made me confident. It showed my who I am as an artist and where I want to go. I know now that I have the need to create, no matter the circumstances. Creation brings me sense and a feeling of belonging. It makes the world more lovable in times of feeling completely detached to it. My work is me. I’m happy to be here and to continue studying and learning to become better at what I do.

SPEECH

Artist Statement