Songlines
Virtual postcards to my friends
Rome, Virtual Postcards, Songlines
Traveling often by car along Roman roads such as the Aurelia, Boccea, Flaminia and Cassia, I know them by heart if only from the eternal traffic jams I found myself in.
Zeeland, Virtual Postcards, Songlines
In between travels I always return to my family home: the island Schouwen Duiveland in Zeeland. After my stay in Tuscany I continued to send my images as virtual postcards.
Tuscany, Virtual Postcards, Songlines
Through the images I discover my new temporary home: the countryside around Tavarnelle Val di Pesa in Tuscany. Most days I spend alone and that’s how it started.
The start of Songlines
In 2000 I moved to the countryside near Tavarnelle Val di Pesa in Tuscany. As I had no car nor bicycle I started the day with a morning walk and, in my proud possession, my first digital camera.
It was in the early years of internet, blogging was in the starting phase. In 1999, according to a list compiled by Jesse James Garrett, there were 23 blogs on the internet.
I started to share my images with friends as an early form of ecards. Songlines of country music accompanied the pictures. I was fond of these songs because of their sentimental views on wandering: desire, leaving, nostalgia, coming home.
In 2004 I was invited by Pier Luigi Tazzi and Vittoria Ciolini to take part in Spread in Prato. The virtual cards were reproduced in postcard size at the occasion of the exhibition Spread in Prato 2004.
Spread in Prato 2004
Spread in Prato is an annual exhibition that winds its way through the urban fabric, among businesses, stores, theaters and homes.
The curator Pier Luigi Tazzi was one of the receivers of the virtual cards. Around 2002 – 2003 he was working as guest curator in collaboration with museum director David Elliott on the opening exhibition of the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo.
That same time I moved to Tuscany. As Pier Luigi originates from Tuscany he found comfort in receiving the ecards of his birthground in Tokyo. And later, once he was back in Tuscany and I back in the Netherlands, he appreciated the ecards I send from Zeeland.
In 2004 Pier Luigi invited me to participate in the exposition Spread in Prato for which my virtual cards were reproduced in real postcards.
Special thanks to Vittoria Ciolini and P.L. Tazzi for their invitation and their sweet welcome in Prato.
Organisation: Dryphoto Arte Contemporanea. Curator: Pier Luigi Tazzi, Artists: Nakahira Takuma, Carmelo Nicosia, Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Armin Linke, Isaac Julien, Sissi, Tomoko Yoneda, Rosa Rossa, Italo Zuffi, Adi Nes, Gil Marco Shani, Rona Yefman, Michal Chelbin, Hiro Yumita, Michelangelo Consani, Donatella Di Cicco; Souvenirs d’un pays lointain: Gruppo A12, Connie Dekker, Luca Malgeri, Herbert Reyes, Addo Lodovico Trinci; Film: Bethan Huws, Mark Lewis, Pascale Marthine Tayou, Surasi Kusolwong
The image slider above shows images from photoworks exhibited in the impressive Lanificio Luigi Zanieri with 12.000 square meters of building. Zanieri is specialised in flock and spool dyeing, carded yam spinning, warping, weaving and quality control.
In Prato woollen rags arrive compressed into bales from all over the world. Special processes strip used sweaters and clothing back to being fibers, called “mechanical wool”.
Souvenir d’un pays lointain
Gallery Dryphoto hosts this year the section entitled Souvenirs d’un pays lointain, a postcard exhibit. As in the previous editions of Spread in Prato, we had considered a book, a real book, like the catalogue or volume of a periodical as a support for the photographs, but this time, the choice fell on the postcard, another fundamental and widely used support for photography.
watch the video La Luce
Settle in for the slow life on the Piazza delle Vaschette in Rome. The video recordings start in the winter months of 1999 and end in the spring of the same year. The young and old are followed in their daily walks.
watch the video Zeeland
The video is about the memory of Connie’s childhood, the big flood in 1953, her mother, her deceased father, her grandmother, the landscape surrounded by the sea.