FOORBIJ NIJ ALTOENAE (Past Nij Altoenae), 2018-2020
In FOORBIJ NIJ ALTOENAE (Past Nij Altoenae) I take you to a country beyond the end of the inhabited world. To discover a tough area in the far northwest of Dutch province Friesland.
Het Bildt. Empty and deserted. Unruly. And with infinite distances.
A land that refuses to please. Where silence reigns.
Inspired by the works of Dutch poet and musician Jan Kleefstra, FOORBIJ NIJ ALTOENAE captures the harshness of the landscape and combines it with portraits and stills into a series of photographs exploring a fascination with the lives of headstrong people tucked away from the everyday and their connection with this grim, unapproachable land.
People who go their own way. Who don't allow themselves to be led by the delusion of the day. By what is ‘new’ and what should change. Bound to each other by their own, centuries-old language. However, a fragile language that is unfortunately on the brink of slowly fading.
But, like most stories, FOORBIJ NIJ ALTOENAE is an interpretation of the truth. The work bounces between fact and fiction, between reality and myth.
