Habitat(ing)
a duo exhibition by Kim Bouvy and Janine Schrijver
Foundation B.a.d
Talingstraat 5 Rotterdam
www.foundationbad.nl
21 September-10 November 2024
Opening 21 September 17-19h
In ‘Habitat(ing)’, Kim Bouvy and Janine Schrijver both explore their shared interest in the tension between nature and culture: how can we reinstall our relation with nature when living in the city? How can the simple act of looking carefully and closely, be a possible tool for (re)connection? How do we live together with the ‘natural’ in our overly designed cultural world? Each operating from their particular points of view and different modes of working with photography - from mere registering to subtly directing the scene - intuition forms their common point of departure.
On 19 February 2019, Kim made the first picture with her phone of a non-descript landscape she encountered almost daily. It became the starting point for an unforeseen but still ongoing series of images taken of the same place, on the same moment, during almost all weeks of the year. On her Instagram page, she posts the images, usually one every week. On a first glance, the depicted landscape does not seem to have changed a lot during these last 5 years. A closer look reveals subtler changes.The landscape seems to ask us: what do we really understand and know about what we see around us?
Janine’s work originates in the public space. Through playful actions with passers-by, she searches for new rituals. How can we relate to each other and all the things around us in a more egalitarian way? What does the place say, what do the wind, the water and the trees have to tell us? She also questions her own attitude as a photographer in which she does not just extract something but looks for a reciprocal process. Photography forms both means and an end.
Janine’s work is made possible by CBK Rotterdam