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A note on mourning
This text was first published through my newsletter on November 26, 2024. You can subscribe to my newsletter over here.
I don’t often send these letters. I’d like to reach out more to people, but well; life. Today I’m sharing a few words and a few images.
A note on mourning.
When someone close to you passes on, life feels unreal. I think this feeling of ‘something is truly wrong’ arises from the fact that they are the foundation, the building blocks, of the structure we call self. We are someone in relation to someone else. And so, they pass on and we have to figure out how to rebuild this building that’s missing a foundational piece. How to start and continue this build is a very personal and creative process. I think this is why the often uttered phrase ‘everyone mourns in their own way’ rings so true. Even though this is the case, I think most of us share that sooner or later we come to accept that there’s no brick that will actually fit the empty space left behind; we need to build a new shape from the ground up.
When my father passed in the spring of 2022, we all dealt with the loss in different ways. I took to writing a lot. Incoherent journal entries where I tried to make sense of jumbled emotions and scattered thoughts
My mother, Pierik l’Istelle, had her own process. Out of mourning, she started creating. And this became a project where she sought to make the architectural endeavour of sculpting sense out of loss a unifying and universal experience. Working with others, she made Zielsverwanten (Soulmates), a multi-disciplinary performance.
Zielsverwanten was first performed past summer in the gardens of a beautiful little cemetary called ‘Huis te Vraag’ in Amsterdam. I captured a few moments of the performance and the stage of trees, plants, leaves and bugs.
Later, on November 2 of this year, the garden was brought inside and the audience was temporarily transported back to summer when the show was performed at the Plantage Dokzaal and the images were projected as a backdrop to the performance. In the room next to us, hot chocolate milk was poured and tamales were served, as the local Mexican community celebrated Día de Muertos (Day of the Dead).
Everyone mourns in their own way.
I’m grateful I could contribute some small thing to the creative path my mother chose to walk. Below you’ll find a few stills from the film we projected. They were shot on 16mm color film. If there’s any project where the fickle and transient nature of a film image is suited, it’s a project that speaks about the fickle and transient nature of life itself.
Baltasar
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‘Dear Daniel,’ (working title)
For a while now, I’ve been working on a film project about my friend and artist Daniel Vorthuys. It’s been a lot of fun reconnecting with him. This is a short description of the project:
‘Dear Daniel,’ will be a film centered around artist Daniel Vorthuys, who explores themes of metamorphosis and identity through poetry, music and performance, inspired by classical literature, myths and fairy tales. The film intertwines documentary and staged scenes in response to Daniel’s artistic endeavors and conceptual explorations. It travels between various historical periods, showcasing Daniel in masculine and feminine roles and using his poetry in the portrayals of lover’s correspondences across ages. Blurring distinctions between reality and fiction, and delving into themes of fragmented identities and romanticism, the project seeks to explore and highlight the complex mosaic of self and otherness.
And here are some pictures of Daniel in his studio, taken during one of our first conversations where we dove deep into his artistic practice:Daniel is performing with his band Cold in Church on March 22nd at OCCII in Amsterdam to celebrate the launch of their album. I’ll be there celebrating with them and capturing some of their performance on 16mm film as part of the film project.
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This Era
After some deliberation, I’ve decided to separate the film and photography work I do for others (artists and other clients), from my own artistic practice. I’ve named the company ‘This Era’. The name stems from the ambition for the company to be involved in projects that reflect this day and age. To be a cinematic support for artistic voices unique to this era and perhaps, not heard enough.
To celebrate the work I’ve done until now and give a clear visual intention of the type of work I’d like to do more of, I made a trailer, edited to Kimiko Ishizaka’s rendition of Bach’s ‘The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1: Fugue No. 24 in B Minor’.To learn more about This Era and my aims for the company, visit thisera.art.
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A long walk in the desert
It’s been years since I made this. I still dig it. A lot of sampling – my own voice, bits and pieces of existing music, synthesizers. When I listen to this song I imagine a lone cowboy in a Mexican desert, slowly shuffling along on his faithful horse, on the lookout for water and perhaps, a kind soul.
I don’t quite remember why I titled the song ‘Stop Giving A Fuck’. I think it had something to do with the fact that at the time, 7 years back, I was worrying quite a lot. Worrying about school, whether I was walking the path I should be walking, worrying about life altering choices I had made. I think that in this regard, I’ve grown quite a lot since then. I’ve come to accept change, good and bad, as a fundamental part of life. And I’ve come to welcome change and not look back all too much, as more often than not, things evolve in certain directions without our thoughtful consent, many things are not within our control.
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Spectre-19
Spectre-19 is a multi-channel film installation that takes place in both the material and digital public space. It mixes elements of fiction and documentary film to depict how the collective subconscious processes the social and societal disruption caused by Covid-19.
Every Friday and Saturday in August 2020, from 10 pm to midnight, the work was projected from the windows of Lab 111 in Amsterdam Oud-West. An online screening could be viewed during the same hours at www.spectre-19.tv.
During this period, the work changed and grew, refusing to take on a definite shape. The 16mm black and white images were filmed weekly, developed in my darkroom and reassembled for the next screening. Spectre-19 unfolded in time like the shadowy afterimage on the retina, after it has been exposed to a glaring reality.
The treehouse in the forest shown in one of the scenes in Spectre-19 was made by artist Talisa Kiyiya. Spectre-19 was made possible by Marijn van Haaster, David Wasch, Joppe Harinck, Onno Petersen, Edwin Schouten, cult cinema LAB111, independent film production company Submarine and live streaming platform WpStream. Spectre-19 is supported by The Amsterdam Fund for the Arts (AFK).
