Parel Silhouet

This project tells the story of pearls and the sea. And the historical connection between The Netherlands and Japan. Kumi Hiroi did field research and developed a visual concept. In July 2019 I joined her and we traveled to Omura Bay to photograph the process of pearl cultivation and to take portraits of people creating pearl jewellery.

The exhibition will show our photo’s together with poems, silkscreen and textiles.

13 – 18 November 2019 at Nagasaki Prefectural Museum

03 – 11 December 2019 at IMA Gallery, Tokyo

For more information please visit: kumihiroi.com

Ping Pong

Ping Pong is a game between makers of words and images. It is a game between the reader and storyteller. A game between a traditional way of reading and a new, alternative way of navigating through a story.

Kumi Hiroi and I developed the idea and a photo concept for this project. Writer Basje Boer reacted with short stories from which we produced new images. In this way, the ping pong ball bounced back and forth a few times.

With this content Van Leeuwen & van Leeuwen and Kumi Hiroi created a web-experience to find out what is the best way of reading a written story on screen.

This project is made possible by Het Letterenfonds and Het Stimuleringsfonds Creatieve Industrie.

For more information about this project please visit: Ping Pong Project

Remodeling

It’s often said that fashion is a matter of taste. Or is it the other way around and is taste a matter of fashion? To what extent are our preferences and ideas of beauty really our own?

Looking closely at the fashion industry through the images it produces and asking others to look with us, we collected words and phrases that became the material from which we created new images.

The project and its publication consist of four interpretative layers: original fashion ads, image descriptions, their translations into photographic images, and six contributed short stories inspired by these visual re-readings.

This is a project by Hymmen & Hiroi.

Remodeling Salome, photo: Hymmen + Hiroi — Remodeling by Hymmen and Hiroi

Remodeling Hanae, photo: Hymmen + Hiroi — Remodeling by Hymmen and Hiroi

Mountains in My Backyard

This publication researches why young Europeans still move to Canada. Economic reasons are almost never their sole motive. Curious about the adventurers I flew over the Atlantic Ocean together with journalist Neeltje Bollen to investigate.

I used landscape photography to examine the interaction between man and his surroundings to tell the story of desires and observations. I want to make the viewer wander through Canada’s western terrain – where people are never the sole object, but always apparent.

Book design: Tijl Akkermans. Available at Stichting Autres Directions: www.autresdirections.nl