GEERT VAN HERTUM
Places
This serie, called ‘Places’, shows areas which you probably wouldn’t notice when walking past. These are the places that fade away in the corner of your eyes when on your way to your school or job. These places only exist because of their functionality, because they are forgotten by their accidental “architect”. Often, spontaneous installation art or extremely absurd constructions emerge here. The two things absolutely necessary to find them are to acknowledge they exist and the time needed to look. For me this is a kind of quest. Sometimes I feel like I’m an explorer. The feel of time has completely disappeared in the images. Often it not only looks like time is standing still in these pictures but also at the places they were made. The only movement at that time will be created by the wind. By photographing this, by ‘framing’ those places and displaying them somewhere else, there’s an even bigger alienation between the final image and the place. The use of a large white border and frame steers the images even further away from the original context. As a photographer it’s my purpose to create some sort of awareness for the viewer, to show them those places like I see them myself. I want to create, for them, the same wonder that I saw at my first ‘discovery’.
© Geert Van Hertum