foam magazine # 26 happy
Henk Wildschut Shelter In order to document the situation of illegal immigrants in Europe Henk Wildschut travelled to Melilla, Malta and several times to Calais to look for the small suburban forest camps where people live in before attempting to travel to the Continent and then on to the United Kingdom. These makeshift camps are regularly raided by the police, only to re-emerge. Despite his repeated visits Wildschut rarely encountered the same faces. A short concluding text provides context and describes the intentions of the photo grapher, but the book’s images can stand on their own. As a reflection of the immigrants’ precarious lives and as a guide for the reader, small holes have been made in the corners of the pictures to reveal hints of those that follow. Wildschut decided to photograph the interiors of the huts and tents to show order and displacement, the essential possessions people keep and thus the spaces that testify to the way their inhabitants live. With its respect for their lives, this book makes demands on our political conscience. In equal measure, its design is addressed to our intelligence.
Tina Enghoff, whose book Possible Relatives is an insider’s tip among photographers, has worked together with migrant women who have been victims of domestic violence. Repression prevents them from returning alone to their home countries and for various reasons they cannot leave their husbands. For her portraits, the photo grapher chose an approach for which there are few precedents. The women are photographed outdoors, in forests or fields, where they assume poses that are variously expressive, dance-like or introverted and embryonic. All of the poses indicate their condition. The images are often out of focus or taken with selective focus and thus heavily aestheticised. A text written with the help of a refugee organisation provides background information, but readers are for the most part left on their own with the pictures. I wish this book every success, above all because it is not a fine-art publication but rather a sober exploration of the subject.
This book could very well spring from an insight that explains the understanding looks often exchanged by young parents: children imitate adults. Judith van IJken has juxtaposed pictures of young adults from the Netherlands in their habitual surroundings with portraits of their parents when they were the same age. The guiding principle for the selection of these pictures was clothing. The people in the portraits are wearing either an item of clothing their parents were wearing at that time or similar clothes (a denim jacket, a plaid shirt, a pleated skirt) in a similar fashion (just as relaxed, just as elegant, just as shy). In addition to the subtle and perceptive portraits, this book won me over by its design. Every pair of pictures has a special layout: some are partially covered by others and can be revealed by folding a page inward or outward; discoveries and comparisons become a source of pleasure. This collection is as light-hearted as a children’s book.
Post Editions ISBN 9789460830341
Journal / Forlaget Vandkunsten ISBN 9197887609
self-published ISBN 9789090254524
Tina Enghoff Seven Years
194
Judith van IJken Mimicry