Silence after the storm
Man has withdrawn into a virtual reality. He has severed ties with a dying world. He turns his back on an uncomfortable reality, shirking his responsibility.
Those who tried to warn him were dismissed as hysterics and fools. What remains of nature are mere shadows on the wall, traces of bare branches swaying in the wind.
The image of a fleeting delineation, framed by a window that no longer serves to look out, to connect, but to shield.
Plato's Lament is a poem that calls for awakening and change.
EXHIBITIONS
Natura Naturata
The Temple of Pan
Referring to Baruch Spinoza's term from his Ethics, man is connected to all forms of existence in nature, and we are not above or apart from the universe around us. The divine is nature and nature is divine, and so is man in his own composition. Pantheism as the opposite of the false dogmas of fake religions that have become blind to their own origin, namely love and respect for all living beings.
His philosophy was also a source of inspiration for 19th century Romanticism, such as Constable, Turner and Friedrich. Even before Spinoza, Milton wrote the epic poem Paradise Lost.
During the lockdown it became clear to many that a walking in nature saved us from mental exhaustion. Have we already forgotten this or is it necessary to build new temples, temples that have in fact always been there, we just have to let them grow, we have to stop destroying them.
Birgit Stulens portrays the forest as a temple, the tree as a column in all its serene monumentality and mysticism.
The River Knows
embracing traces of Ophelia; the river remembers
Water reflects the sky masking what lies beneath, breaking the light, distorting the image, mirroring or translucent and layered, clear or cloudy, calm and peaceful or troubled and treacherous, giving and taking life, carrying slowly diluting memories towards the open sea, never giving them away completely.
This introspective body of work handles with memories and loss, the flow of mourning, and gradually letting go.
We are the river
Disappearing Trees
More than ever before, our natural world is under threat. Humans are destroying the habitat of species, and cutting trees, whole forests, for economical, practical, even aesthetical reasons, or for no reason at all. We are literally cutting down the branch that we are sitting on, blinded by selfishness, greed or pure stupidity. When will we realize that our survival depends on the survival of all life on our entire planet? There is no time left to be poetic about it.
Nighthawks
Tender is the night. Darkness brings you to a different universe, a quiet one, filled with graphic forms and blurred shapes. Buildings have faces, trees become giants, leading their secret lives when the world is asleep. Even ugly turns into beauty. Observing and recording images in darkness changes the perception, it's like learning a new language, it opens up your mind.
Paris Revisited
Photographing from a Paris terrace twice in ten years. The sudden overall though unremarkable presence of little screens made the difference when returning. Presented during SCREEN IT at SMARTLAB/Off the record. A video-installation and performance giving the passers-by a look into the photo book "Paris Revisited" ...voyeurism without direction.
"an observatory for behavioral research, a random but captivating spot
in the heart of the city, a location (to) return(ed) to
two moments of observing , the crossing of random people
from across the street
a sneak view, a rear window, 9 years apart
it seems the city didn’t change that much
not even the people in it
only a detail stood out
the object they were holding in their hands
and the way it was used
a screen, a talking booth, a computer
a map, a mask, a companion, a guide,
an escape, a camera, a window, a mirror
Are we compulsively drawn to this ‘smart’ object that
keeps us from interacting with our environment,
or is it the opposite?"
Suspension of Time
I'm not a Coward
Time is a theoretical approach to a cosmic reality. In space, time has a different dimension than on earth.
The dimension of time differs within the observation of living organisms. One second means nothing in space. Within microscopic worlds, time has different impact in relation to the life span of an insect, a cell or that of a more complex organism. Sometimes, time chases us in synchronous messages: 14:14, 12:12; 8:08 AM; 13:31… do we have to search after a meaning?
The Now is a human concept that does not exist, it is a purely mental perception, there is no possibility of freezing time in one moment, it immediately becomes the next, except in a still image. A photograph captures a moment, tells a story, an image brings the moment to a standstill. What was framed in the past is brought back to the present in the moment of the interaction with the viewer. The image gets an interpretation and the Now is suspended. The reflection of Time in a mirror
I'm not a Coward
PATTERNS: A PATH TO SIMPLICITY - Cows are part of the landscape. They place color accents in nature and observing what happens around them.
Every morning the world races past a meadow as they graze, seemingly inconspicuous. Her characterful eyes are adorned by the most beautiful eyelashes.
Despite her size and melancholic look, a cow is elegant, she moves cautiously and looks at the world from a distance.
When carefully observing cows, it is noticeable that they graze in patterns, in the same direction, more or less equidistant from each other… these patterns are repeated daily. Is there a hidden relationship behind this behavior, do social rankings play a role, is it a pure coincidence or do we underestimate their intelligence? In "The Relationship Between Cow Behavior Patterns and Management Systems to Reduce Stress," by R.C. Lamb - US Department of Agriculture, there is a section about social behavior of cows and behavior patterns: “When in the pasture, cows follow a group pattern where they do everything in unity. They graze at relatively the same time. They lie down and rest at the same time.
When the dominant cow (lead cow) gets up and starts drinking, they usually all get up and follow her.” There is also talk of a ranking in the cow community.
This study confirms the observation that behavioral patterns are effectively present.
FLOUISM - Initially I wanted to capture these patterns, freeze the regularity, write down the rhythm. By defocusing, this rhythm became clear from the chaos. Only the contours remained, a blurry image that takes away the details but brings the shape to the foreground. It became a quest for the aesthetics of these lines, with attention to light and shadow, composition and color, a touch, an essence. Just as a perfume is fleeting, the image becomes a "fragrance" of reality.
KALEIDOSCOPE - After observation, over a period of two and a half years, the attention gradually evolved from the group to the individual. By zooming in on the head of the cow, the hair pattern between the eyes stood out. Deduplication ensures perfect symmetry. A geometric figure (pattern) is created between the eyes, due to the direction of the hair, a symbol, a sign. They become almost demonic heads that attract attention and do not let go quickly.
Feel with your eyes
From the archives
images captured with Rolleiflex and Leica, gelatin silverprints or scanned film negatives ( 1998-2010)
