Anke van Iersel: Complete Me
10e Epson Fotofestival Naarden, 17 May – 10 June 2007
Naarden is a miniature old town - actually a fort in shape of a star that dates back to the 17th century. It is a quite pleasant tourist sight with remarkably a lot of big expensive cars driving on its streets. The area attracts rich people so Naarden boasts some deluxe real-estate companies, deluxe wine stores and restaurants, one deluxe snack bar and a number of deluxe art galleries to cater the crème of Dutch society. Luckily the festival tries to ignore the wants of all the well-behaved people that flock the town. It is probably making them feel slightly flabbergasted because the majority of the exhibited photographs cannot be described with worn-out phrases, like nice, interesting, beautiful, strange and - should the works be a bit too much on the unpleasant side - bizarre. And the series of photographs I am going to write about could be relatively bizarre for some viewers and pretty much more interesting for the other.
Anke van Iersel made a series where we see a young punk mother with her baby son (who already has an appropriate hairdo), a body-builder in his bedroom surrounded with plush monkeys and a woman with bright red hair collecting pieces of broken glass on a beach. But it is not just the people who look a bit different. The series shows landscapes and animals as well. The photos were taken spontaneously, with the help of a variety of techniques. But the goal was not about making perfect photos. The works have a snapshot feel which effectively turns our focus on the stories. The series was also accompanied by different texts - song lyrics, stories that were written by the subjects themselves and the like.
Van Iersel's work tells stories about people who do not belong to the mainstream. The photographer herself sometimes felt as if she was a bit different from the rest. Probably every adolescent kid was faced with a situation whether he or she should do what the rest of the kids were doing. The photographer used this dilemma to depict the life that was going around her. And the works are all about life that is to be caught. From the horse that gets his snack of fresh grass to woman floating in algae.
And maybe all this does not to seem as anything much, but the works are a break from the do's and don'ts of the western society. Appear in tight speedo's at a beach full of teenagers and they will be pointing at your belongings. Gather mushrooms in a Dutch forest and you will have to pay a fine. Express your negative opinion about the film Sissi your partner's family is watching after Christmas dinner and you will not get another glass of punch. What this series of photographs tries to say is that there is a life where at least some of the rules are not so important and that there is luckily still room for us to start breathing again.