Francesca Woodman

In April 2012, during a short vacation in New York, we visited at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMa) an exhibition of the work of the American photographer Francesca Woodman (1958-1981).

I was immediately intrigued big time. Rarely I have seen such a direct, personal and moving photography. She has possibly been the first photographer ever to use photography so explicitly to bring something that lives inside really to expression and by doing that establishing a dialogue through photography with herself, to experiment with and explore herself – as human being and as woman.

On almost all of her pictures she herself and only herself as the subject - almost in every instance naked, in a simple composition, and in a very magical-expressionistic style – largely taken against the décor of an abandoned, empty house, vulnerable and alone, as in retreat. Images that were not understood and received well at the academy of art were she studied and which to a large extent haven’t been printed ever during her life (that came to an end far too early as a result of suicide). Although on one end she was striving for recognition (and hence publication) – and hence for expression to and communication with an audience – her images also show a desire for being alone and an atmosphere of loneliness and struggle with herself.

I felt myself enormously inspired by what I saw. Not necessarily by the form and theme she chose, and her personal process, but by the idea behind it and how convincing that was elaborated: photography as a means of self-expression and object-isation (bringing to the outside in a material form) of something that lives inside that can hardly be captured (yet) in words, but even better in images – in order to learn from it. It inspired to experiment likewise (first the following summer in the Corrèze, see image above, later on around the end of the year at our attic) and make a few series with myself as subject, of which a few can be seen on my website.

I had to think of this when I was made aware of a play by Toneelgroep Maastricht, “How to play Francesca Woodman”. The play by four young actresses, which text has been written by Anne Vegter (Poet of the Nation) and Erik-Ward Geerlings (amongst others Decamerone, Mephisto), wil have its first performance on March 15 in Maastricht, but after April it will be performed across the country. I am very curious, and keen of seeing it!

Silodam

There he stood parked at the waterside, an old Citroën. Grey from the outside, but with red lining on the inside - and above us a grey sky over a ditto Silodam. A view in the mirror. Then our imagination takes us along - to France, rolling over some Route Nationale, southbound, following the sun. Last summer still, when life was languid, the days sultry and love intense. For a moment we feel again the warmth, taste the crispy bread, the salty cheese, a drop of sweat pearling over our skin, the buzz in a an distant alley across the square. Or the grass itching in our neck, another kiss. The rolling along the road, the rattling over a bridge. Our view strays off and everything now looks a bit warmer, radiating. The Silodam, are we still at the Silodam?

Waterloop Forest

Actually I am supposed to translate now my latest post on my Dutch blog on the personality of the photographer and its impact on how we see, create and interpret images, based on the personality theory of Carl Gustav Jung. As such a very interesting article, but rather lengthy - and seen the massive interest and feedback I get on my English blog edition (not), I am rather hesitant to put much effort in it. Unless you object of course :-). That's why I limit myself to just recapitulate what I wrote as an introduction to that blog: on my recent return to what I believe is one of the most poetic forests in the Netherlands.



The 'Waterloopbos' (water way forest) is one of the eldest forests of the Northeast Polder. This part of the former Southsea (Zuiderzee) was reclaimed to land in the period 1936-1942. This forest was created at the north-eastern edge of the polder in 1944, rather quickly after the water was fully pumped out in 1942. As the soil here consists of peat and sand above an impermeable layer of loam, the area, together with what is now the adjacent Voorsterbos, was regarded as inappropriate for agriculture - turning it into a forest was seen as a reasonable alternative.

In 1952 the government gave the part that is now the Waterloopbos to the Waterloopkundig Laboratorium (now Delft Hydraulics). Since then the forest was used by its engineers for creating models of hydraulic projects around the world. To feed these models, water from the adjacent 'Borderlake' (which is 5 meters above the polder level) was led into a myriad of canals through the forest - flowing ultimately into the Zwolsevaart, a large canal used to draw water from the polder to keep it dry. Once the model served its purpose it was just left in the wood and nature took over again. In this way you still find the remnants of many models across the forest, including models for the Dutch Deltaworks, a sea dyke for Surinam and ports around the world, including Rotterdam, Vlissingen, IJmuiden, Lagos, Bangkok, Istanbul and Beirut.

In 1995 the Waterloopkundig Laboratorium was privatised and a year later the management decided to move out as by then models could be created much easier using computers and in-house facilities in their new laboratories in Delft. Since 2002 the forest is owned by Natuurmonumenten, a large conservation organization every responsible Dutchmen is member of, and preserved as a very special ecosystem, including these models. The combination of humid forest vegetation and fauna along these half overgrown ruins of models, wave machines and sluices, gives the area a very special atmosphere. This is further emphasized by the water you hear running and rustling everywhere, the smells and the beautiful light filtered by the humid air - in particular in autumn and winter.

It is just a small area, allowing a brief walk of about 4 km - but once you are there, in particular as a photographer, you can amaze yourself for hours. Just watch these two images I took in December above and below (there are more on my website - click through the image - taken back in 2010).



I have a few more like this one that are even more pretty, which I might publish later (so please watch my website and this blog!).