As long as I can remember I like to listen. When I was a child, I asked my father every night not to read a book but to tell me about a childhood memory. I visualized his memory so that it became my own. It became a game; searching for the right questions and testing how far I could go. I wanted to get to the core.

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This didn’t change. I still listen and ask a lot of (maybe inappropriate) questions, but now I visualize the memories or emotions through photography, film, text and music. Combining these different forms of creating help me to make the story that I want to tell, clear and complete.

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You can notice this in my project ‘Vertel’ where I interviewed several people in Schiedam, put my prejudices aside and focused on listening patiently so I could get to the essence of their stories. My work is not about a bigger picture, but about the details. I look for bits and pieces of a story that are somehow universal. If you listen closely to the songs of ‘Vertel’ you can recognize yourself or someone you know in it. 

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This method of interviewing people and capturing their stories is the core element of my work. It is my natural way of researching, filtering and creating. 

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