The photo albums on this page are the result of a visual anthropological approach of the photographic medium in documenting contemporary human lifeworlds. Albums are arranged in [six] big folders. In the first album I explore an ethnographical take on the human-nature relationship via the domain of landscape photography. Next is a folder on street photography in which I investigate inter-human relationships and (mainly in an urban setting) the ‘betwixt and betweenness’ during key-rituals and events. Thirdly, one can emerge in a folder with photographs of my study on food and it’s place in human society. A special (limited) series on the life in my natal village during the 2020 corona pandemic, makes up the fourth folder. The fifth album contains the visual traces of contemporary urban spaces, the lives of the humans living in these environments and what they tell us about the general human condition. Lastly, the vistor of this site can browse through the succesion of albums created during my stays in Ainu-Mosir, the native land of the Ainu (Hokkaido, Japan). These photographs are part of my ongoing anthropological work amongst the Ainu-community.
The Fabricated Landscape
The crossover between natural landscapes – so called untouched, ‘wild’ nature – and cultural landscapes – worked and reshaped environments by humans – has been a provoking tension within human civilisation since (probably) the dawn of humanity.
This ongoing photographic series investigates the subject through a visual ethnography and reflects upon future means of
(co-) habitation on planet earth in the era of the Anthropoceen.
Eating Culture
Eating is not only necessary to live and survive, but it is an essential part of human social and cultural life. The anthropological study of the production, preparation and consumption of food is the subject of this photographic album.
The focus here is on the meta-meaning of foods, that goes beyond it’s commercial or nutritional value.
Cool City Spaces
The story of city life in meta-modern urban spaces under the reign of late-capitalism in a globalised market economy is one of extreme living conditions, ambiguous lifeworlds and alienation. The series evokes sometimes the ‘existential confusion and loneliness’ of the meta-modern human. This visual ethnography focuses on the material culture of contemporary urban space and the layers of social and cultural genealogies that lay at its origins.
(Porch of café ‘Au Daringman’, Brussels, Belgium, 2020, iPhone SE).
About Humans
Human lifeworlds can but only take shape within a community, through social interaction and in a particular environment. Human lifes are interdependent of one another. This series is a visual ethnography of human lifeworlds through its big and small rituals, performances and customs. The focus lies on the unique moments of ‘betwixt- and betweenness’ within human communities and inter-human relations. The proverbial lens through which these activities are investigated is by participant observation (sometimes just by full participation or observation only) as a full-member of the tribe called humanity.
Pandemic Village Life (the I-phone walks)
A photographic essay of daily life during the 2020 corona pandemic in a little Belgian village. The photographs where shot with my I-phone only during walks in and around the village.
In Ainu-Mosir
This album features photographs of my stay in Ainu-Mosir, the land of the indigenous population of Hokkaido in modern day Japan. My time amongst the inhabitants of Nibutani during the ethnographic fieldwork (September – October 2018) for my master dissertation in anthropology at KU Leuven University, was the starting point of a life long friendship and anthropological study.
About HUMANS 