You did an MA in photography at the Art Academy in Breda, following your BA in art. What did the MA course add to your photographic practice? My Bachelor education in The Hague was mainly focused on commercial photo graphy. I learned a lot about photographic techniques and presentation. After graduation I worked for two years as a commercial photographer but it didn’t feel like something I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I started the MA in Breda to investigate my own fascinations and to work on my own projects. The best thing about Breda was the discussion. Every week several students presented their latest work to a group made up of students, teachers and guest teachers. With so much expertise and so many opinions, I learned how to talk about my work and to trust my ideas and defend them.
tant to me. The places I photograph are mostly what I call sick buildings; buildings that are awful to be in because of the lighting, air conditioning etc. But my pictures are not about how horrible these places are, nor about being unable to connect with the place you are in. I need you to feel attracted to the space as well, so that you don't really know whether to hate or love it. I try to achieve that by choosing spaces with attractive bright colours, interesting structures and exciting light.
experiment with the medium, combining photography with video, sculpture and installations. They come from various art academies in The Hague, Breda, Amsterdam and Utrecht. It seems talents inspire and encourage each other. Another important element is that the cultural climate for emerging artist in the Netherlands used to be very good. There were several subsidies and grants that enabled young artists to develop their work. I think this is very important because it takes time to find your own way and grow as an artist. Unfortunately due to enormous budget cuts in the field of culture in the Netherlands those financial arrangements are rapidly disappearing. I fear that in the near future this fertile cultural landscape will disappear and it will be very difficult for art academy graduates to flourish.
foam magazine # 32 talent
The need to find a balance between concept and intuition.
What first attracted you to interiors and the feelings they elicit? I started to take photos of interiors when I was doing a series about airports. I began work on that series after watching a documentary about a businessman who travelled the world for his job. He spent most of his time in convention centres and around airports. One day he woke up in his hotel and had totally forgotten where he was. Looking out of the window didn’t give him any clues. He had to check his diary to find out. I thought his experience was quite surreal. It related to a feeling I sometimes have in airports or suburban areas myself. I made it visual by taking photos at various airports and ended up in underground areas, such as endless labyrinths of moving staircases, hallways and waiting rooms. They almost seem to be designed to disorientate. You loose all sense of direction, and usually there’s no daylight so you have no idea what time of day it is. Interiors are common subjects, or much-photographed places. How did you impose your way of seeing on those spaces? Sometimes I search for months before I even get my camera out of my suitcase. The first important element for me is that it’s not instantly clear how the space is put together. There may be a hallway that seems to lead nowhere or a fake wall suddenly dividing the room. Also, structures and colours are impor-
interview by Anne-Celine Jaeger In Interiors, you deform or alter spaces in vacant office buildings to create installations of your own making. Do you know immediately what the space needs? What is your working process in deciding what the installation will be? For this new series I don’t know exactly what I want to do with a space before I start. I don’t make sketches but experiment with the space itself and with materials already present in the building such as insulation-material, ceiling systems TL light boxes, carpet, etc. Sometimes I add things that I buy at the hardware store. This is a big turnaround in my way of working. Building the spaces myself enables me to work in a more intuitive way and to be less dependent on what I actually encounter. I am able to research a lot in a relatively short period of time, by making compositions of various materials and photographing them with a small snapshot camera and seeing if it will work in a 2D composition. Rather than using existing architecture, this way of working enables me to create more psychological spaces that translate the feeling of disconnection in a more personal way. There seem to be a number of talented young photographers emerging in the Netherlands. What do you think it is about the country and its teaching system that’s producing such talent? I agree with you that there are many young talented photographers from the Netherlands. A lot of them make great work and
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You have taught photography at Fotogram in Amsterdam and at Beeldfabriek Rotterdam. If you were to distil your lectures into a single message, what is it you were trying hardest to get across to your students? The need to find a balance between concept and intuition. Ideally they should work on both simultaneously. Students can be very vulnerable so encouraging them to make lots of work, experiment and not to think in dogmas is for me the most important thing. What are you currently working on? I’ve been changing and constructing spaces for over a year now. I’m definitely not finished with that. The new method made me more aware of the fact that textures and surfaces are increasingly important in my work. I’m currently conceptually interested in working with cheap, fake, non-durable materials, such as laminate flooring, slab tiles or ceiling systems because they immediately refer to the places in my previous work. I’m also working on a plan to exhibit my work in a spatial presentation. The installations I build for my photos are sometimes very interesting in themselves. I want to experiment with presenting them in combination with the photographic works. •