Strijpers
After a turbulent time of divorce, I came to live in the Anton building at Strijp-S in Eindhoven; one of the old Philips factories that have been converted into lofts. Through the joint Facebook group where everyone could ask any question, I quickly got to know many of my neighbors. Everyone who came to live there had an empty loft and had to build something out of it that met their personal wishes. My curiosity about all those new people and what they had done with their loft made me go for coffee and portray them in their new homes.
After three years in which I photographed about 100 people, I worked intensively on the development of this series as an artist in residence in the pressure cooker of Van Eijk and Van der Lubbe. From here I started a crowdfunding to exhibit the loft portraits in large format on the construction fences in the area of Strijp-S and in this way make the photos visible to everyone and make them part of the area: an insight into the lives of these people in this special place. In the pressure cooker I also found out that by focusing my camera on this community of which I was a part, I had found a perfect way to reflect on the environment in which I find myself; which people are around me. This resulted in a TEDx talk: how the camera shows which community you are in.
Visit the Strijpers Facebook Page to keep track of the series and its developments.