Catherine Smet
Van Nhi Nguyen
Catherine:
"I thought about places that make me feel safe. Attached is a photo of one of my best friends who's laying down in front of her parents' beach house we go from time to time. It's one of those places we escape to, to get away from our every day lives sometimes. In a way I look at it as finding shelter from life and the world that can be so demanding and threatening sometimes. In that house I always feel like nothing can get to me from the outside world. It might sound stupid because it's just one and a half hours from my home but that's a long drive in Belgium funnily enough. As I think of it there aren't too many places to go under the circumstances and this is one of the few. This particular friend also makes me feel safe because of her careless nature. We're very different people but still we fit on a deeper level. I love how she looks so comfortable and free laying there. I don't think I'll ever forget this house."
"I thought about places that make me feel safe. Attached is a photo of one of my best friends who's laying down in front of her parents' beach house we go from time to time. It's one of those places we escape to, to get away from our every day lives sometimes. In a way I look at it as finding shelter from life and the world that can be so demanding and threatening sometimes. In that house I always feel like nothing can get to me from the outside world. It might sound stupid because it's just one and a half hours from my home but that's a long drive in Belgium funnily enough. As I think of it there aren't too many places to go under the circumstances and this is one of the few. This particular friend also makes me feel safe because of her careless nature. We're very different people but still we fit on a deeper level. I love how she looks so comfortable and free laying there. I don't think I'll ever forget this house."
Van:
"With the new subject of this week I want to touch on how safety doesn’t have to go to such extreme like being safe in wars, diseases, threats etc, more about how secure an individual can feel doing something. To me safety is being able to truly immerse in an environment, without feeling like one’s wellbeing is being jeopardized by an unknown force; that can be from the smallest thing like reading a book, having a routine, taking a nap.
"With the new subject of this week I want to touch on how safety doesn’t have to go to such extreme like being safe in wars, diseases, threats etc, more about how secure an individual can feel doing something. To me safety is being able to truly immerse in an environment, without feeling like one’s wellbeing is being jeopardized by an unknown force; that can be from the smallest thing like reading a book, having a routine, taking a nap.
Images that popped to my head when the subject came up was of Rineke Dijkstra’s jarring “Beach Portraits”, which i’ll attach one of them. Her deadpan portraits were of people on the beach, as title suggested, full body portraiture with heavy flash. The images are very confronting, their body languages suggested little to nothing yet everything at the same time, couple with that is the title for each image is just simply the first name of her subject. When I look at these images there is a sense of vulnerability and sensitivity unspoken, the subjects all look so awkward and unsure, which I think is so brilliant. It lines up perfectly with “safety” in term of their relationship with the artist taking their picture is fleeting, that the photographer is almost like a slight threat to them that it can be seen through their poses.
An approach I had in mind for this is the safety created from doing a routine, a chore. There’s this sense of security in knowing what’s coming. The mundane is almost the safest thing, as it is predictable. Attached is a polaroid of my laundry day, which to me seems rather regular, but it’s comforting."
An approach I had in mind for this is the safety created from doing a routine, a chore. There’s this sense of security in knowing what’s coming. The mundane is almost the safest thing, as it is predictable. Attached is a polaroid of my laundry day, which to me seems rather regular, but it’s comforting."
Rineke Dijkstra, Beach Portraits