NOORD
The beginning of the 20th century, Amsterdam built garden villages across the IJ. Like the British sent their scum to Australia and new Zealand, Amsterdam set up an outplacement policy for poor families from the slum to North.
The socialist pedagogic thought created solidarity by providing church, work and neighbourhood associations. But no cafes were allowed.
Due to her bad reputation and willfulness North never belonged to the rest of Amsterdam. North is now in the middel of an gentrification.
Amsterdam’s best kept secret has been revealed/became well known.
AMSTERDAM
The complex soul of America
During a long, documentary journey from Miami to Los Angeles, I moved through the economic undercurrent of America: small towns, motels, gas stations, and city outskirts—places consistently lost to the headlines and the national maps.
I photographed the ‘ordinary citizens’ who inhabit these in-between spaces: barbers, waitresses, veterans, families, and travelers. What fascinated me was not the official rhetoric of the American Dream, but the fissure that lies between it; the tension, the unspoken doubt, and the resilience hiding in the everyday.
Each image is an attempt to unravel the complex soul of America, captured in moments that resist spectacle: the weariness of a gaze, the quiet pride of a veteran, or the vulnerability of a discarded symbol of faith. The portraits are direct, frontal—an unvarnished confrontation with reality.
The project evolved into a study of identity and symbolism. The images reveal the remnants of the American Dream: the decay of the local economy, symbolized by the abandoned gas station where the only beacon is a cross proclaiming ‘JESUS SAVES’.
The visual interruptions—from the fierce political loyalty in the Trump 'super store' to the archives of family life in Donna’s garage—are fragments of the material culture that make the internal fault lines of the country visible. By capturing these iconic symbols and everyday remnants, I register not only the places but also the collective and ideological distance that separates Americans today.
IN BETWEEN STATES
