20/006
Stijn Bollaert
Photographer
Ghent
«For me the essence of architecture lies within it's power to change something for the better in someone's life.»
«For me the essence of architecture lies within it's power to change something for the better in someone's life.»
«For me the essence of architecture lies within it's power to change something for the better in someone's life.»
«For me the essence of architecture lies within it's power to change something for the better in someone's life.»
«For me the essence of architecture lies within it's power to change something for the better in someone's life.»
Please, introduce yourself…
I'm a photographer with a special focus on space and the built environment.
In my work I meticulously look for the moment in space or in a landscape, while paying great attention to context.
How did you find your way into the field of Architecture and Photography?
I started out studying architecture, but switched to studying photography a few years later. During my photography studies I mostly abandoned architecture at first, concentrating on documentary and street photography.
While I had been working in and on cities, it wasn't until I did a project on Walter Benjamin's Passagen-Werk that I started looking into the city again as a built environment.
Ever since, the synthesis of architecture and photography has been at the center of my work.
What does your working space look like?
I consider every place I take pictures of as an office for the day :)
Here's one, on the 42nd floor of a building in Brussels.
Working Space – © Stijn Bollaert
Working Space – © Stijn Bollaert
What is the essence of architecture for you personally?
For me the essence of architecture lies within it's power to change something for the better in someone's life. This can range from the simplest thing, creating something that changes the way an individual feels, sees, or thinks - all the way to architecture's more complex ability to improve how a family, a community, a company or even a whole city works.
When documenting architecture, I strive not just to show a structure, but also to make the viewer understand how it works. People often know buildings only through photographs. Even the juries of most architectural awards don't visit a building in real life. This of course puts quite a responsibility on the shoulders of architectural photography.
On one hand this calls for images that allow enough depth and complexity. On the other hand, especially in this day and age, there is also a need for iconic representations that can easily be read and remembered, without being superficial.
Not everything should be explained though - there should be just a little bit left to the viewer's imagination.
Project
Building Memory
2019
This is a series on memory, space and representation.
I was asked to photograph an old building by Import Export Architecture. Being recently acquired by a client, there were no clear plans for the building yet, but it was obvious the building would cease to exist in it's present form.What started out as documenting space quickly evolved into more than just that.
Originally conceived as offices, the 19th century building later on became the home of a family. Under slightly unclear circumstances, the house seemed abandoned in a sudden rush, leaving behind the residue of several people's lives.
Being dragged into those lives, I started to investigate and partially (re)construct the stories this house contained, and to which it had been the background, like a dollhouse.
This confronted me with the choices you make as a photographer, and the responsibility that comes with them, especially with this level of intimacy. Deciding what to show and how to show it, or choosing what is left out, defines how things will be remembered. At a given time, the photographs might be all that is left.
As a constructed memory in frames, layers and reflections, the photographs will show, suggest, define and distort all that was there.
