‘Just Surfin’ Through’ – An Installation

‘Just Surfin’ Through’ was an installation I imagined about the whole concept of Couchsurfing. I myself am a Couchsurfer host, and what I love about it, is that you share your culture with someone else, and he/she/they also teach you things about their cultures. It’s a lovely way to broaden your horizon, all the while helping your fellow humans.

The installation is a collection of 9 screens, stacked in a 3×3 arrangement. Each screen represents a living room of a Couchsurfer host, and the people who live there each go on about their lives like usual. At the same time, there is also one couchsurfer traveling around the screens. He talks with the people, sleeps on their couches, joins them for a meal and teaches them a new song, a game or lends them a book. The collection of screens is a representation of how everyone lives their lives simultaneously, but how the couchsurfer that a man in China is about to host soon, is currently visiting a family in San Francisco. Through one guy, all these houses are connected. The world turns into one global village, where borders have no meaning and cultural differences is an addition rather than a problem in one’s life.

I might want to work out this installation in the future, seeing that the whole Global Community subject is something that I am currently also writing a documentary about.

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Silence

I love graphic design, I love typography and I love writing.

I wanted to combine all those three and create something new. So when a friend of mine asked me to join a project group he started where every month a theme was picked for people to be creative with, I instantly got excited.

The first (and sadly also the last) edition and theme of the project was ‘silence’ and I saw it as a chance to write something about it, and then do something visual with it. It took a lot of work, layers, time and patience, but I am happy with the result.

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Magazine Layout Design

Market Faces

The Albert Cuyp Market in Amsterdam is a place where you can find all the tastes, flavors and colors of the Netherlands. From the fish stands on the corner, to the flower stands in the beginning, to the Dutch cheese stand in the middle. Where most visitors are there to browse the goods and taste the local delights, I went to see the people who run the stalls, and asked if I could take their picture for a portrait series of the market. I then combined them in an installation where their faces were on one side of the board, and the goods they had for sale on the other.

The pictures featured here are a selection.

New York Photography #2

Over the summer of 2011 I went to New York City to visit my brother.

I just bought my Canon EOS 600D at the time, and these are some of the pictures I made.

MyChart

For a three week seminar students from the Utrecht School of the Arts were linked to companies from the larger cities in the Netherlands who were looking for a fresh view on their businesses and the creation of three fictional products created by teams of art students. I am a film and documentary student, and in my team I was working together with girls from different faculties of my school.

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International Schweppes Brand Commercial

Schweppes bought two clips from my freelance film work and used them in their international internet campaign promoting their new app: Schweppes Your Moments.

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iPad Case Design

I surfed around on the internet, looking for the kind of Moleskine Case I wanted for my iPad. There were several, but al of them had something that I just didn’t like that much. Either it was the price, an extra pocket that I didn’t feel the need to have, the color, a wooden casing or something else.

I took some lessons in the art of bookbinding during my high school years and I decided I would try and make my own, all according to what I was looking in an iPad case.

After I finished the design I however never gotten around to making it, seeing that I found another case that I also liked just as much.

Kaleidoscope

Rob Postma, Jesse Tuenter and I made this experimental film. For a first-year assignment at Utrecht School of the Arts we were given several pieces of music, of which we had to choose one. That piece of music needed to be translated into a visual work.

Music used: ’4 Mains’ by Wim Mertens

Tussen Oud Hout & Nieuwe Grachten

The Houthaven harbor area in Amsterdam, the Netherlands is an work/live area in development and is highly advertised by the project developers and the city’s board of management as being ‘the next big thing’ in real estate.

But even 30 years after it’s initial start, the area is still a picture of building plots and temporary projects. In ‘Tussen Oud Hout & Nieuwe Grachten’, Koen en I wanted to discover what happened in the Houthavens, and how the old and current residents think about the way their neighborhood isn’t going anywhere.

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Zonderdak

Inspired by the work of Anton Corbijn, Eva Leysen, Malu Keijzer and I made this audiovisual portrait of homeless people in the city of Amsterdam. Trying to capture their essence, and create a photographic look, this was an experiment for the Utrecht School of the Arts in Hilversum.

Nominated in the category ‘Documentary’ at the ‘HKU Mediale Festival’ - organized by the Talent Factory Hilversum & Centrum voor Beeldende Kunst (Centre for the Arts) – June 2012.

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Nordic Delight Festival

In cooperation with two others, I worked as a film programmer for the Nordic Delight Festival in Utrecht.

We booked several documentaries, short films, student works and features, all from or about either Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland or Iceland.

‘Kleurspoeling’ – een zoektocht naar de vrije meningsvorming

Everyday you see the news, it’s all around you, everywhere you go. But what is true these days? Who do you trust and is everything you hear or see really what happened? Is the media changing our opinion by only showing certain parts, and what effects do different broadcasters and/or newspapers have on the public?

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New York City Photography #1

Over the summer of 2011 I went to New York City to visit my brother.

I just bought my Canon EOS 600D at the time, and these are some of the pictures I made.

NS Graphic Design

When the Dutch queen was announcing that she was passing on the throne to her eldest son, the Dutch Railways wanted a graphical design connecting this news to their brand.
The deadline was within a few hours after they announced the assignment and my design was chosen and bought soon after.

Thesis Cover Design

A family member wrote her thesis this summer and for the book design cover she wanted me to design something fitting to her research and conclusions.

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Low Key Photography

The contrast between light & dark, night & day has always been something I am fascinated with.

I love how shadows fall across a subject, how a beam of sunlight can burst through a cloud or how bright lights can blind your sight and make everything you see turn into silhouettes. The difference between sunset and sunrise and the moods you can create with a simple filter.

I notice that a lot of the pictures I make have something to do with light, wether it’s the brightness, the colors or the contrast.

Jij/Ik

“A woman is standing on the roof of a house, barefoot. She is dressed in a trench coat and does not speak. While we focus on parts of her body, we experience the memories that belong to them and the history of her and her lover…”

- Assignment for school: make an opening sequence for a fictional movie by only using one shot, no editing allowed.

I wrote, directed, edited and did the voiceovers for this film.

Lebuinus

A poetic and observational documentary on the Lebuinus church in Deventer, the Netherlands. Divided in three parts we explore various sides of the building and the experiences people might have.

The first part: ‘Divination & Devotion’

The second part: ‘Fear & Guilt’

The third part ‘Beauty & Art’