aliens-3

When I travel in China I stay out of the tourist tracks as much as possible. Often I visit villages where no other western people have been before.  I remember in 2007 we came to Buja, a village  high in the Pamir mountains in Xinjiang. When we got out of the car the whole village fell silent. People stopt doing what they were doing and just stared at us. Then they started to move and in a little moment we were surrounded by people asking questions. I didnot feel comfortable. The crowd was a bit too big and surpressing for me. But then it got better and I felt free to move around. The dwellings along the river looked like fortresses.  The surrounding walls were at least 2 meter high. In the yards  old willow trees gave shade in the hot sun. The fresh green from their leaves made a beautiful contrast with the dusty beige mud of the walls and the whole surrounding. Inside these high walls there were several houses. Some were of the new type the government offers to farmers needing help. These houses are build of concrete with big windows to let in a lot of light. This may seem healthy, but in this area  not very well suited to the climate. Must be very hot in summer and cold in winter.  But these government farms are the same for all regions. The older houses were traditional mud houses. At the end of the yard there was a door in the wall. The  oldest man in the house showed us around and opened what proved to be the entrance to his house. He was the patriarch of the family, with a long white beard and high leather boots. He was 89, his wife a very frail woman of 86.

The walls of their house were about 1 meter thick. From a small window in the roof beautiful light streamed  on the mud platform where people sit during the day and sleep in the night. It was a good house he told us. He had build it himself and all his children had been born here.

This Patriarch’s Home is one of the pictures that will be on show in my exhibition that opens coming Sunday, February 21st in Art Space Fred Wagemans, Beetsterzwaag, The Netherlands. At the opening at 15.00 I will tell more  stories from my diary. There will be pictures from 2005, 2007 and 2008.

One more picture from a very different corner of China. This is from a very small hamlet in Xishuangbanna in Southern Yunnan on the border to Laos. Farmers here live in houses build from mainly bamboo. The families live on the first floor, stables and storages are on the groundfloor under the living areas. These hamlets are surrounded by primeval rainforest. It can be very difficult to reach them, especially during the rain season. I remember our car more sliding then driving through the mud. I was very happy to arrive safely and finding both a very good meal and a wonderful nights’ sleep in this beautiful house. Also this picture will be included in the show.

Aliens – 2

This afternoon I went to the opening of the exhibiton of Dolph Kessler and Zoltin Peeter at Gallery Smarius in Gorredijk (Netherlands). Dolph Kessler photographed at Art Faires the combination of the art, the gallery owners and their personnel, the furniture and the public. Sometimes all these elements add up to a new piece of art. At other times the result is just  hilarious. I think Dolph Kessler has a good eye for both situations. With pictures from these series he did win last January the first price in the Dutch press photography competition “de Zilveren Camera” in the category Science, Culture and Entertainment.

From the book ART FAIRES by Dolph Kessler, d’Jonge Hond 2009.

The pictures offer a glance into the looking glass for all those, who visit Galleries and Art Faires. The show this afternoon was no exception.

aliens

Amstelveen community (near Amsterdam) has invited 5 photographers to colaborate with them on an art project. One weekend every  year a number of their artists open the doors of their workplaces for the public. To get more attention for this activity 12  artist will also show their work in the garages of inhabitants of Amstelveen. The photographers have been askeds to take pictures of these garages. The owners of the garages had been asked not to tidy up for the picture. Unfortunately Dutch housewives are proud of their homes and I found nicely ordened garages – at least  too much ordened for my taste.

“Vrijheid” (Freedom) by Elly de Jong. Photo:  Marrigje de Maar

Glassobject by Jan Verschoor. Photo: Marrigje de Maar

The  pictures wil be on show in the Keizer Karel Gallery in the through fare under the A9 near the Cobra museum from March 25th until July. The workplaces will be open for visitors on the weekend of  April 10-11th.

The other invited photographers are  Danielle Van Ark, Willeke Duyvekam, Christine Van Rooijen en Lucia Ganieva.

Take first, think later

A friend mailed me this week that the German sentence that opend my first posting  ”Ich möchte, ich hätte ein Heimweh” is not correct. This is true. You cannot have ‘ein Heimweh’. Homesickness is something  you  feel, but it is very difficult to lay your hands on it. Putting it in this way however, it expresses better both the longing after and the pain of  not knowing that  feeling.

I wrote this sentence in my third year at Art School. I had been experimenting with painting and printing, but none of that suited my purposes.  I worked for a period of time with  this sentence and a new word “HEMWEH”.  From there I moved on making assemblages and performences with the help of pictures and  objects connected with photography.

I knitted ‘sweaters’  from cut up rejected pictures, until I realized that working with photographic objects was not enough anymore. I didnot need the products of others anylonger. I was ready to start and make my own.

In a masterclass with Lynne Cohen at the summerschool in Salzburg I realized the potential of sites and places to express feelings. Then disaster caused the necessary breakthrough. My Nikon fell from the tripod and broke to pieces. Now I had to work with a Pentax 6×7 camera, which I had borrowed from school. The fear for that camera made me concentrate  10 times harder and that both improved and changed my work. After coming home I bought my Bronica G1 – 6×7. Having the viewglass horizontally made it easier for me to  concentrate on the composition. Using a tripod made it possible to work inside with available light. Working this way is  slow and tiresome, but I can still travel with this gear and take the image more or less the moment I see it. Using a large format camera – as I had in mind – would have made that impossible. I cannot first visit a number of places and then decide where to go and take a picture. I have to start working on the spot, the moment I arrive. Come back later and my image will be gone. I need this first impression, this first moment of recognition.

Since 2008 I work with a mechanical Hasselblad. This camera works everywhere in every climate, as it doesnot use batteries. The square format of the Hasselblad has added more intimacy to the pictures. Often it is so dark in the room, that I can only see half of what is there. This is okay for me. It is the atmosphere  that counts, not the objects. Later in my studio I first make a rough selection from temporary scans. Later in the lab in Amsterdam I select  further from the negatives, together with my printer Peter Svenson.

News from Nowhere

What a title! I ‘borrowed’ it from the new collection of poems by Anna Enquist. I have read many of her books and when I saw this title in the window of the bookshop I decided  to buy it instantly. It happens more often  that I buy a book or CD on the title or the picture on the cover. And usually I am not disappointed about what lays behind.

Often my work is seen as – at least partially – documentary. Of course my pictures are taken in Russia or China. And certainly now that I am in China so often, it may look like a documentary . But a documentary of what? The pictures are each telling their own story. About living in rural areas, the people who live in these houses, regional culture, light and shadow.  Yes, you could read my work as travel stories. I also write a diary, that some day may be published together with the pictures. But the core of the images  is about something else. Through these images I want to express something much more universal. Therefore – News from Nowhere.

“Ich möchte ich hätte ein Heimweh”

‘I wished I could be homesick.’ I wrote this sentence in 2000 after listening to a radio interview with the Estonian conductor and composer Arvo Pärt. He told the journalist that when he needed new inspiration, he returned to his house in the dunes in Estonia. And when he had too many engagements to go home, he could just imagine to be  there and still feel inspired by the place.

The last part of this remark struck me. What a luxury to have a home that gives you such a feeling of comfort and strength only by thinking about the place.  In 2003 I started to travel and take pictures of personal homes. Homes that I could  imagine to be my temporary sanctuary – if only in my dreams.

Since 2003 I have been travelling in China, Finland, Japan and Russia. The above picture is one of the first pictures I took that year . It is the kitchen of Palaga. Palaga lived in Paanajärvi in Russian Karelia. In this village all the young people have left. As only old people stayed behind, Palaga  - 86 then – had to take care of herself. She had to cut her own wood for cooking and heating and had to fetch all water from the river even in winter by – 30. I met Palaga in the village street and she was only too happy to show me her home. “My dear Lord still has no place for me”she told me, “so I  have to keep going a little bit longer”. In 2005 a friend mailed me that Palaga had got her place in the house of her Lord.

I travelled in Russian Karelia in 2003 and 2004. Then in 2005 I went for the first time to China. I returned in 2007, 2008 and 2009. In between – in 2006 – I went to Japan. Together the pictures form the series Enchanted Spaces. To view the complete portfolio,  check my website. See the link under my name. There you also find more information about the different series and my CV.