Der Beitrag workshop — on cyanotype and bookbinding erschien zuerst auf malenki.net.

In the past, I have often used photography as a medium to tell stories. A few years ago I started searching for other media to make work and my relationship with photography changed a little. I still like photos, but the layers in an image are more important than they used to be. A photo can tell one story or contain different storylines, you can read an image in different ways. I think the strength of an image lies in the fact that it gives the reader and maker the possibility to make his or her own story out of it.

Still, an image has a manipulative side. In some circumstances, the picture will choose his own way, in others not…
Photography means selecting, setting priorities. This photographic process allows me to distinguish the necessity of the banality within a story. As a photographer, you frame and compose your image and you decide what you show and in which order/context you show it. Although, I realise that editing only controls and does not imply absolute truth. This is for me one of the beauties and the strength of the photographic medium.

What role does publishing play in your photographic practice and in particular in your work Forain, Kaffers en Boerin?

My latest photographic work is Forain, Kaffers en Boerin. For me, this work needed a book form to exist. I worked a lot with audio recordings during the making of this book. But it became a real photo book after all. It also became a time document, which, I think, is a very nice side effect of photography in combination with a book.

Another great thing about a photo book is that it continues to exist. It is not removed from walls after an exhibition, it is not possible to erase it, it can be viewed several times with no time limit… it becomes part of someone’s interior, someone’s life. Whether it is in the attic or between other books in a library. It continues to exist.

What are you working on at the moment?

Right now I’m starting a project about my experiences with physical vision. Probably photography will be part of it, although I don’t mind her absence.

To get a closer view inside Siska Vandecasteele’s work visit her website under www.siskavandecasteele.be

malenki.net features the following publications by Siska Vandecasteele

Der Beitrag Meanwhile in Antwerp — Interview with Siska Vandecasteele erschien zuerst auf malenki.net.

Photography starts from reality, but it doesn’t necessarily show the truth. You can capture things and moments with a photographic apparatus which would never be visible to the naked eye. Time is an important aspect in photography, and you can stretch that time by using a slow shutter speed to expose things that are otherwise imperceptible. I like to explore perception, create images which aren’t really there. The act of creating an image is important, and the mixture of controlling all technical aspects and embracing chance at the same time. My interest is shifting more and more towards experiment and photography which explores the medium itself.

What role does publishing play in your artistic practice and in particular in your work Antrum?

An artist book is a portable, mobile exhibition that can live a life of its own. It is also a nice way to share your work. A book is the best form to show the old Lourdes grottos of Antrum. It has a certain narrative. It allowed me to mix my own images with old images by anonymous photographers, and for the first time I used text. Since it was my first book, it was a whole different medium, with endless possibilities, and a lot of decisions to make.

What are you working on at the moment?

I am working on two projects: Space, reflected is an attempt to evoke the idea of three dimensionality on the flat surface of a photograph. By using and manipulating elements inherent to the medium like light, shadow, reflection and colour, I aim to create another sense of space. For my other project I am experimenting in the darkroom making photograms.

Until now only in Black and White, but I really want to work with colour paper soon. Meanwhile I am examining different tactile papers and ways of folding for an edition I am working on. It shows a photogram which I scanned and colored. I want to present it as a folded poster with a sculptural quality.

To get a closer view inside Rio Staelens’ work visit her website under www.riostaelens.com

malenki.net features the following publications by Rio Staelens

Der Beitrag Meanwhile in Antwerp — Interview with Rio Staelens erschien zuerst auf malenki.net.

I tend to see art as a language, as a way of ‘thinking in images’. As someone working, teaching in the arts, I am interested in paintings and installations, books and theatre and … photography. Even observing people in real life or getting the thrill of a ‘genius loci’ works for me as food for the mind. However, when I start making something, I will always fall back on photography. It is what I see and feel. It’s a language I can speak and hopefully … with some eloquence.

In photography I like the finesse of observation, the play with light and time, the meticulous build-up and composition. I like the ‘gap’ ,the ‘leap of faith’ if you want, that occurs between ‘taking the picture’ and the resulting image. A slice of time and space stolen from oblivion. So I work with photography because it is the medium I understand and master. That being said, I do combine photography with some of the objects present in the photograph in order to make installations. The bricolage, the unbalance, the immanent fiasco are all part of the modus operandi here. So I like to be at the steering wheel and lose control.

What role does publishing play in your artistic practice and in particular in your work D R A T E R ?

I did not do a lot of publishing until now. It is something I definitely should expand. D R A T E R was a publication coinciding with an exhibition. For me, it’s an exhibition in it’s own right. I have to admit the use of the graphic possibilities in the publication was rather modest. Which I like. A way of showing photographs really. I’m preparing a more ambitious publication, an artistic venue in its own right, with the typographer Stephane Deschrevel at this moment. De Maat der Dingen will be a cross-section of my work Leçons de Choses.

What are you working on at the moment?

I’m working on a series of what you could describe as still-lifes. Combining installation and photography. I pick up rubbish from the street or from my own ‘housecollection’. Then I make installations as a set-up for photography. They involve shakystacking, things in an unstable balance, just before the tipping point of collapse. Kept together with glue, threads, counterweights, tape and rope. The constructions remind the viewer of themes which are hard to pinpoint: a suit of armor maybe? Stones seem to crawl onto a printing block. Are we witnessing the return of the stone age? The come-back of the antenna? Perhaps in this work, mold is beating gold. Again here it’s about the gap, about how the mind bends itself, invents new significance, works out associations. The things in the picture change status, alter weight and modify meaning in the interplay of objects, forms, perspective and light. Thematically what seems to pop-upin all my work is the cycle of building and an inevitable collapse.

Facing the projections of a bright technological future, that surround us, I want to represent the failing, searching and stumbling man. The bungler who keeps things going with spit and baling wire. Exactly….. the whole lot of us, even those who see themselves as the captains of the future. So the work combines radicality with a tinge of lucid humour. Thus I give expression to my own fears and uncertainties, meanwhile reflecting about the assumptions our society is permeated with.

To get a closer view inside Willem Vermoere’s work visit his website under www.willem-vermoere.com

malenki.net features the following publications by Willem Vermoere

Der Beitrag Meanwhile in Ghent — Interview with Willem Vermoere erschien zuerst auf malenki.net.

Ik ben dagelijks met fotografie omringt, ik geef praktijk op Luca School of Arts, Sint-Lucas Brussel – afdeling fotografie, waar ikzelf ook mijn master opleiding volgde. Mijn vriend maakt tentoonstellingen waarbij het medium vaak domineert. En mijn kennissenkring is stevig doorspekt met kunstenaars die fotografie gebruiken.

In mijn eigen artistieke praktijk heeft fotografie sinds enkele jaren haar monopolie-positie verloren en moet ze de laatste tijd regelmatig plaats maken voor andere media, zoals video, zeefdrukken, etsen (via digitale lasercut), frottage, installatie…

Mijn werk start meestal vanuit iets feitelijks: een artikel, een biografie, een verhaal, een ontdekking, …. iets dat ik wil delen maar dan vanuit mijn perspectief. In een bepaalde fase ga ik onderzoeken welk medium ideaal voelt in functie van de verhaallijn, soms is dat een fotografische reproductie.

Voorlopig beperk ik me tot media die op hun eigen manier een reproductie maken van een bestaand beeld, van een visueel startpunt of realiteit die dan vervormd/hervormd wordt afhankelijk van het medium. Een frottage bijvoorbeeld is een reproductie van een reliëf. Dat leunt voor mij nog sterk aan bij fotografie.

Welke rol speelt publiceren in uw artistieke praktijk en in het bijzonder in uw werk Errors and Residuals?

Sinds 2018 werk ik o.a. aan een doorlopend reeks kunstenaarspublicaties Errors and Residuals, waarin ik me buig over het archief van Ignace D.K., een voor mij onbekende man. Ignace stierf in 2013, een paar maanden voordat mijn ouders in zijn voormalige huis gingen wonen. Het was er een sanctuarium midden in de bossen. In dit huis ontdekte ik het perfect georganiseerde en georkestreerde universum van Ignace. Hij liet er niets achter zonder reden en hij zorgde ervoor dat, zelfs na zijn dood, de orde niet verstoord zou worden. Ik gebruik het archief als een startpunt voor een onderzoek naar de methodes en strategieën die we hanteren om het leven behapbaar te maken, te controleren.

Het werken aan een kunstenaarspublicatie is relatief nieuw voor me. Bijgevolg is het continue een ontdekkingstocht rond papier, druktechniek, vouwen, snijden of afwerken. Ik heb mijn werk tot nu toe meestal gemaakt met een ruimtelijk einddoel voor ogen, een tentoonstellingsvorm. Er sluipt in die werkwijze een soort routine in die ik wilde doorbreken. Vandaar dat het boek als tentoonstellingsformaat als zeer bevrijdend aanvoelt.
Ik ontdek en herdefinieer continue een – voor mij – nieuwe manier van communiceren: het lineaire van een publicatie, het narratieve, haar intrinsieke geschiedenis en eigen grammatica. Het geeft veel vrijheid, maar steeds binnen een afgelijnd en beperkt kader van een omslag. Ik hou van de contradictie dat beperkingen en obstructies van een medium net zo grensverleggend worden.

Waar werk je op dit moment aan?

Ik ben geïnteresseerd in het gebruik van eigen gegenereerde methodes & systemen om grip te krijgen op het leven. Hoe we onszelf proberen te beschermen tegen de van nature bestaande wanorde, het oncontroleerbaar verloop van het leven en de grootsheid & chaos van het universum. Als mens hebben we een aangeboren drang om onze omgeving te ontleden, patronen te onthullen, theorieën op te maken om het onbekende, oncontroleerbare beter te definiëren en te trachten te voorspellen. Wetenschap is daar een goed voorbeeld van. En uiteraard ook religie. Het wordt voor mij echt boeiend wanneer mensen al dan niet bewust fictie inzetten in de vorm van bijvoorbeeld rituelen, in het gebruik van beelden (fotografie) & tekst als overlevingsstrategie.

Om met deze thematiek verder te werken, blijf ik nog steeds cirkelen rond het archief van Ignace D.K. als een planeet rond haar zon. Het blijft een boeiende considerans dat soms eens dichtbij is en dan weer veraf.

Sarah van Marcke‘s website kan je hier bezoeken www.sarahvanmarcke.com

malenki.net features the following publications by Sarah van Marcke

Der Beitrag Ondertussen in Antwerpen — een interview met Sarah van Marcke erschien zuerst auf malenki.net.

There are three things that instantly come to mind: The medium of photography allows for an almost infinite number of techniques and combinations of its different parameters. It can be a very simple tool to make an image. It can also be made into a very complicated piece of wizardry, a black box that creates beauty by accident, in ways we can’t fully comprehend nor describe properly.
 Besides the technical aspect, photography is known to have the ability to create time capsules. It is the fossil making machine I dreamed of as a kid. When I was little I was sure I would become an archaeologist, like many other kids of the Jurassic Park generation. Then I was lucky enough to grow a bit older and I wanted to become a writer and movie director… Which brings me to third aspect of photography that makes it interesting to me and that is the narrative capability or incapability of the medium. Photography is maybe not so suited for truthful storytelling, but that is where it gets interesting: Its power to suggest truth. In connecting photographs there is room in between images to be playful, to suggest something to the viewer. It’s a form of poetry or prose in which I can translate some deeper feelings… which I have trouble with bringing to words… Something I clearly struggle with as you might notice here.

What role does publishing play in your artistic practice and in particular in your work Camouflage Studies?

Publishing is also part of what I describe above as the infinite number of possibilities to combine different parameters and techniques. It offers room for experiment and is an honest and humble way to share work. Camouflage Studies for example is the result of experimenting and bringing together techniques that weren’t necessarily meant to be used together.

It started with finding this weirdly beautiful black and white negative of chameleons, animals known for their ability to change color. The photographic paper the print was made on was initially developed to give very bright colors to the images that were printed on it. The characteristics of this paper seemed to be a good way to give back the chameleonic impulse of the image’s subject.

What are you working on at the moment?

Normally I would be preparing for a trip to Denmark to make images for a new publication. The plan is to document a cultural heritage site in South Jutland, which is not well known but is a clear example of visual imagination of people who were isolated. It is in some way an extension of my book AÆUÅÆØ which dwells on the outsider feeling of being isolated, of being on an island…

To get a closer view inside Nick Geboers’ work just visit his website under www.nickgeboers.com

malenki.net features the following publications by Nick Geboers

Der Beitrag Meanwhile in Antwerp — Interview with Nick Geboers erschien zuerst auf malenki.net.

Der Beitrag malenki.NET #1 erschien zuerst auf malenki.net.

Der Beitrag workshop — on creative writing and publishing erschien zuerst auf malenki.net.

Der Beitrag Antwerp Academy Art Book Fair 2018 erschien zuerst auf malenki.net.

Der Beitrag workshop — from idea to publication erschien zuerst auf malenki.net.