Project

Wistful Thinking - Wistful Thinking refers to a melancholic longing for the past. Photographs and videos evoke collectively shared memories with implicit narratives. Wistful thinking refers to a melancholic longing for the past. Through photographs and videos, collectively shared memories are evoked with implicit narratives. Drawing from my own childhood memories of suburbia, I focus on notions that are anonymous in their uniformity. Seeking scenes that can be found everywhere in Belgium, at any moment in the post-war era. Each photograph attempts to transform the seemingly mundane and reverse the familiar. A fascination with night runs through my work like a common thread. I explore themes of urban isolation and inner lives separated by outward appearance. The images undermine the traditional Belgian suburban fantasy and reveal the fear and alienation that suburbs have come to embody in popular culture. The compositions reference the often uncomfortable and lonely scenes of Edward Hopper's paintings and reflect the interests of filmmaker David Lynch. The project consists of a slide projection and a CRT television installation. The photographs are fully developed by hand in Antwerp. In the same way that I approach photography by capturing something that already exists, I use sounds that already exist. Under the name "Teletext" I move within the world of vaporwave. A music genre in which sounds are appropriated. In this part of the project, sound and video samples were edited with a focus on specific pieces. Comparable to how elements are framed in the images. Each work is a story in itself, they are nostalgic islands through which you can travel in time. On these sound pieces, images are edited from old archival footage from the 80s, 90s, 00s. It directly targets the generic and dull as ironic commentary on modern excessive consumerism and also reflects on the somber glamour of late-stage, post-capitalism.