Présentation

The land on which we live has always shaped us. It has shaped the wars, the power, politics and social development of the peoples that now inhabit nearly every part of the earth. We will to some degree always be shaped by the rivers, mountains, deserts, lakes and seas that constrain us all – as they always have. As a kind of ‘subsistence organism’, ‘we’ created the state as an organism rooted in a specific territory. With this concept of idea we’re justifying the existence of a particular state incorporating particular regions. The state border is the ‘peripheral organ’ of the state organism, the skin, so to speak. It demarcates and protects the core area of a state. In the so called three-country region of France Germany and Switzerland we’re facing three of these ‘organs’ and thus also three borders, all defining a specific ‘space’, with there own system of rules, esthetics, traditions, ambiance, power and political system. Geographic borders, especially those that separate states, capture the imagination. The border is also a barrier to flows of goods and services, to forms of cross-border cooperation between regions on both sides of the border and to the living environment, activities and experiences of the border by border residents and societies. But the border is not only a barrier, the state also maintains contacts with the outside world via the border. People, goods, knowledge, capital enter the country via border crossings and also leave the country in this way. This dual function of the border can be found in border towns that are both military fortresses and economic hubs for cross-border trade.  During the residency I’ll capture these different functions and physical manifestations, with the sometimes border-crossing activities in and of the border area. My photography has a dual role, namely that of representation of the object or subject in the border area and the photos also create a different framing and perception of the ‘organ’. The project stem from different disciplines: photography, cultural anthropology, design, architecture and urban planning. It’s almost an anthropological fieldwork and analysis. During my fieldwork period, as documentary photographer, I intend to (de-)contextualisation as means of creating signification and representation of the subject or object, trying to questioning the status of photographs, objects and rituals in relation to structuring the organisation of space. In order to raise awareness or change of perception of the viewer about the public space along borders.

Parcours

Willem Mes (Rotterdam), photographer, works and lives in Utrecht. He started his career in 1986 during his intervention as civil engineer at refugee camps in Jordan. In 1990 he graduated at the Royal Academy of fine Arts in The Hague. The first photo project he made was on daily live in Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan. His project made for the Rijksmuseum Catherijneconvent, « The seven works of mercy », was his first solo show. He works for numerous Dutch and international clients. All kind of commissioned work and projects, made him travel over the five continents and he has shown his works at countless cultural institutions, e.g. in Lusaka (2000), Amsterdam (2001), Utrecht (2004), Tilburg (2009), Geneva (2009), Mallorca (2010), etc. He has published in various books and in magazines e.g. “Pelgrimage in Europe” (1998), « Avantgarde » (1999), « The European Landscape » (2004), « Villa Sovietica » (2009), “Oberflächligkeiten” (2012), etc. Beside these projects, many photos were made for image banks, annual reports, corporate identity, magazines, etc. In cooperation with curator and various artists from Kiev and München, he participated in the “Villa Sovietica” exhibitions. The book “Import-Export”, made with this team and graphic designer Severine Mailer, as part of the “Villa Sovietica” exhibition, in which his photo-essay was published, was nominated by Nouvel Observateur as one of the most beautiful books published in France in 2009. Currently his focus of interest is on projec