The main exhibition ‘An Ocean of Possibilities’ is produced jointly with Singapore International Photography Festival (SIPF), and continues to travel to Singapore where it will be shown from 31 October to 28 December 2014.
An Ocean of Possibilities is inspired by the growing quest for different means to shape our collective future, in a hopeful answer to the structural failings of our current economic and political systems.
An Ocean of Possibilities looks at the decisive potential of those who go against the tide and plot their own course.
The 21st Noorderlicht International Photofestival is inspired by the growing quest for different means to shape our collective future, in a hopeful answer to the structural failings of our current economic and political systems.
With To Have and Have Not (2013), Noorderlicht shed light on the causes and agents behind the current global economic and political crisis. An Ocean of Possibilities moves beyond dissecting what went wrong, and looks at the decisive potential of those who go against the tide and plot their own course.
These may be individuals, small communities, busi- nesses that think in terms of sustainability, or social enterprises. Whatever their form, they set out to realize a better future, not only for themselves but also for others, even if that means an uncertain outlook.
Some political analysts speak of the challenges we are facing as a crisis of agency. They use the term to signify the struggles with the global corporations, whose powers threaten the sovereignty of the nation states, undermine representative democracy and corrode the ecosystem of the entire planet.
Within this framework, nothing much seems expected from common people beyond a passive role as consumers and spectators, or as providers of ever cheaper labor.
With To Have and Have Not (2013), Noorderlicht shed light on the causes and agents behind the current global economic and political crisis. An Ocean of Possibilities moves beyond dissecting what went wrong, and looks at the decisive potential of those who go against the tide and plot their own course.
These may be individuals, small communities, busi- nesses that think in terms of sustainability, or social enterprises. Whatever their form, they set out to realize a better future, not only for themselves but also for others, even if that means an uncertain outlook.
Some political analysts speak of the challenges we are facing as a crisis of agency. They use the term to signify the struggles with the global corporations, whose powers threaten the sovereignty of the nation states, undermine representative democracy and corrode the ecosystem of the entire planet.
Within this framework, nothing much seems expected from common people beyond a passive role as consumers and spectators, or as providers of ever cheaper labor.
As the effects of this struggle are increasingly spilling over into our personal lives, this crisis of agency is now felt by all. It is taken by some as a challenge to reclaim agency over their own lives and that of their community, amidst social structures that are liquefying at an alarming rate, while it pressurizes others to renegotiate the conditions of their existence.
Simultaneously, we are learning to imagine ourselves as planet dwellers, thanks to the achievements of scientific programs that study global processes, or bring us back spectacular images from Mars and our solar system. We have been made thoroughly aware that the shared responsibility for an essentially fragile home – and still the only one we have – does not end with the borders of one’s country, but extends on a global scale. The enormity of this thought is truly daunting, and recent history has shown that we have serious trouble grasping the consequences, let alone acting on them.
Among younger generations, who have grown up in the age of the Internet and worldwide mobility, an understanding of what global citizenship could mean is on the rise. They feel less tied to nations, faiths, cultures, lands, and lead nomadic lives either forced by necessity or by choice. They are also the ones to ask themselves, as artist, engineer and activist Natalie Jeremijenko did in a recent interview: “What to do (...) in the face of so many environmental and political challenges. What do I do as an individual, collective, or community? How do we produce a desirable future? Do we have any agency to imagine and redesign our collective relationship to natural systems? Can we make desirable imaginative changes?”
These are the questions An Ocean of Possibilities sets out to answer as it called on photographers to introduce us to those who try their hand at brokering alternatives that make our world less wrong, and perhaps even a little better.
What emerged from the extensive search –including the more than 700 entires – is a preliminary map, with many waters left to charter. On this map we find seemingly groups of people in the process of making changes that appear minute or even futile, but which could grow into major movements shifting the course of history. Because everything seems impossible until it happens.
This is the reason why An Ocean of Possibilities has brought together grassroots movements in self-government with testimonies of individual soldiers taking up position against the wars they fought. Or found a small village in Finland where Congolese immigrants are actively encouraged to come settle down. It connects us to small IT start-ups in crisis-stricken Greece, it explores the face of social innovators, enterprises and marketbased approaches to poverty in Africa. It reconnects Asian urban dwellers with the nature they left behind when migrating from the country side. It follows families and individuals who prefer to seek a life off the grid, going back to small scale farming, and helping each other to accomplish just that by sharing knowledge and experiences. It illuminates those campaigning for land rights, the protection of valuable ecosystems, or self- determination. It speaks of youths in the Arab world pursuing their dreams and hopes in times of social and political transitions.
In short, it makes visible how we may rise to the challenges put befroe us, not guided by a single Utopian dream, but by trying to hack the forces of the present that would like us to believe our future is already set in stone.
Simultaneously, we are learning to imagine ourselves as planet dwellers, thanks to the achievements of scientific programs that study global processes, or bring us back spectacular images from Mars and our solar system. We have been made thoroughly aware that the shared responsibility for an essentially fragile home – and still the only one we have – does not end with the borders of one’s country, but extends on a global scale. The enormity of this thought is truly daunting, and recent history has shown that we have serious trouble grasping the consequences, let alone acting on them.
Among younger generations, who have grown up in the age of the Internet and worldwide mobility, an understanding of what global citizenship could mean is on the rise. They feel less tied to nations, faiths, cultures, lands, and lead nomadic lives either forced by necessity or by choice. They are also the ones to ask themselves, as artist, engineer and activist Natalie Jeremijenko did in a recent interview: “What to do (...) in the face of so many environmental and political challenges. What do I do as an individual, collective, or community? How do we produce a desirable future? Do we have any agency to imagine and redesign our collective relationship to natural systems? Can we make desirable imaginative changes?”
These are the questions An Ocean of Possibilities sets out to answer as it called on photographers to introduce us to those who try their hand at brokering alternatives that make our world less wrong, and perhaps even a little better.
What emerged from the extensive search –including the more than 700 entires – is a preliminary map, with many waters left to charter. On this map we find seemingly groups of people in the process of making changes that appear minute or even futile, but which could grow into major movements shifting the course of history. Because everything seems impossible until it happens.
This is the reason why An Ocean of Possibilities has brought together grassroots movements in self-government with testimonies of individual soldiers taking up position against the wars they fought. Or found a small village in Finland where Congolese immigrants are actively encouraged to come settle down. It connects us to small IT start-ups in crisis-stricken Greece, it explores the face of social innovators, enterprises and marketbased approaches to poverty in Africa. It reconnects Asian urban dwellers with the nature they left behind when migrating from the country side. It follows families and individuals who prefer to seek a life off the grid, going back to small scale farming, and helping each other to accomplish just that by sharing knowledge and experiences. It illuminates those campaigning for land rights, the protection of valuable ecosystems, or self- determination. It speaks of youths in the Arab world pursuing their dreams and hopes in times of social and political transitions.
In short, it makes visible how we may rise to the challenges put befroe us, not guided by a single Utopian dream, but by trying to hack the forces of the present that would like us to believe our future is already set in stone.
Onbreekbare eieren en lichtgevende herten
Op de fotomanifestatie Noorderlicht gaan fotografen dit jaar niet alleen op zoek naar wat is, maar vooral naar wat zou kunnen zijn. De vraag is of je kunt geloven wat je op deze documentaire foto’s ziet.
Door Lucette ter Borg >DONDERDAG 4 SEPTEMBER 2014
Het klinkt weids en jubelend, zo van: klop dat oude tafelkleed nu eens uit en verlos jezelf van je angsten over een leeglopende bankrekening, een huis dat onder water staat, de ecologische afbraak van de planeet of de gruwelijkheden van IS. Verstar niet, maar kom in beweging. Wees vindingrijk, creatief en bedenk alternatieven waarvan de uitkomst – oké – ongewis is, maar misschien wel veel beter dan de status quo waar je nu al zolang naar staart.
De net geopende fotomanifestatie Noorderlicht, het oudste festival voor documentaire fotografie in Nederland, staat dit jaar in het teken van An Ocean of Possibilities. Noorderlicht, dat jaarlijks rouleert tussen Groningen en Leeuwarden, zetelt sinds dit weekeinde in Leeuwarden met een ode, zoals de organisatie het zo mooi omschrijft, aan „de rusteloze geesten, die de waan van de vaste grond onder hun voeten prijsgeven voor een leven gewaagd op open zee”.
Die ode is opgesplitst in een aantal subthema’s. Daarvan zijn die van Call of the Wild (in het Natuurmuseum), Rise over de massale opstanden van 2013 (in etages in winkelcentrum Zaailand) en die over alternatieve leefwijzen het interessantst. De hoofdtentoonstelling in het Fries Museum – een plek die voor een geëngageerde fotomanifestatie als Noorderlicht eigenlijk te steriel is – omvat met zo’n 350 foto’s van dertig internationale fotografen alle thema’s. Hier hangen schitterende projecten waarin het hele spectrum van documentaire fotografie aan bod komt: van documentair tot pure kunst, van rauwe fictie tot gestileerde werkelijkheid, van geëngageerd tot zelfzuchtig.
Zo fotografeerde de Franse Cyril Marcilhacy hoe in de bossen van Fontainebleau een hoopvolle caravangemeenschap is ontstaan van 115 daklozen. Ze worden aangevoerd en vooral in toom gehouden door de ex-biker, ex-gevangene en ex-zwerver Brann du Sennon. Beste foto is die waarop de ontzagwekkende Du Sennon in zijn legerkloffie de plaatselijke supermarkt bezoekt. Hij doet zijn bestelling bij de vleeswarenafdeling, keurig achter zijn winkelwagentje. De winkeljuffrouw bedient hem, maar met een blik die even subtiel is als veelzeggend. Het is niet alleen de toonbank die deze twee mensen van elkaar scheidt.
De Oostenrijkse Katharina Fitz (1985) daarentegen gaat vooral als autonoom kunstenaar te werk. Haar Urban Gardening Patchwork is een door en door geconstrueerde verbeelding van de vier seizoenen in een alternatieve moestuingemeenschap op het voormalige vliegveld Tempelhof in Berlijn.
Fitz diept een genre op dat in de zestiende en zeventiende eeuw in de schilderkunst van de Lage Landen populair was, in de loop der eeuwen tot oubollige kitsch verwerd, maar dat zij nu overtuigend naar het hier en nu katapulteert. Haar vier grote foto’s van winter, lente, zomer en herfst zijn melancholieke mozaïeken. Daarop ontdek je van alles over verschillen, het verglijden van tijd en de noodzaak om aandacht te besteden aan wat klein en fijn is.
Na het zwaarmoediger onderwerp van vorig jaar, toen Noorderlicht ging over de wanstaltige rijkdom van jonge en oude roofkapitalisten en de ellendige leefomstandigheden van de have nots, is An Ocean of Possibilities lichtvoetiger maar niet minder serieus. Binnen de fotografie is het thema bovendien actueel: nu foto’s niet meer automatisch geloofwaardig zijn, zouden documentaire fotografen niet alleen meer op zoek moeten gaan naar wat is, maar ook naar wat zou kunnen zijn.
Een goed voorbeeld daarvan is Zhao Renhui (Singapore, 1983), die met haar Guide to the Flora and Fauna of the World in het Fries Museum is te zien. Haar foto’s – in zowel statig zwart-wit als verleidelijk glossy – vertellen een verhaal over natuur die door de mens is veranderd. De kleurenfoto’s van flora en fauna losgesneden van hun context zijn als de bladzijden van een goed vormgegeven aanbiedingscatalogus. Zo ‘zweeft’ op een babyroze ondergrond een prachtig vierkante, rode appel. Daarnaast hangt een sappig stuk tot ‘rundvlees’ gemodificeerd varkensvlees, een ‘onbreekbaar’ ei, een goudvis van vier kilo. Alle producten (ook de dieren) zijn genetisch gemodificeerd.
Renhuis zwart-witfoto’s roepen de meeste vragen op: een hert met in het donker oplichtende ogen is volgens de bijschriften door een Russische wetenschapper geïnjecteerd met het lichtgevende gen van een paddenstoel, om aanrijding van herten in het donker te voorkomen. Adam, de neusaap die op een tak zit te luieren, heeft volgens de fotograaf door Japanse wetenschappers het FOXP2-gen (het gen dat zorgt voor menselijke spraak) ingeplant gekregen. Adam zou daarmee de eerste sprekende aap ter wereld zijn. Moet je geloven wat je op deze documentaire foto’s ziet, of beter van niet? Adam heeft vooralsnog het wereldnieuws niet bereikt en de vierkante appel is nog niet in de schappen verschenen.
Uit NRC Handelsblad van donderdag 4 september 2014, 859 woorden (leestijd ongeveer 3'26)
Op dit artikel rust auteursrecht van NRC Handelsblad BV, respectievelijk van de oorspronkelijke auteur.
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