Forward Escape Into the Past

Instalation view, Forward Escape Into the Past, De Brakke Grond, Amsterdam (NL)

FORWARD ESCAPE INTO THE PAST

M-Museum, Leuven (BE), 2018

De Brakke Grond, Amsterdam (NL), 2018

"In Forward Escape into the Past, the artist is showing photographs from his two most recent projects, which are situated at the intersection of nostalgia and visionary utopia. The title of the exhibition suggests an alternative future for humanity and in so doing links the two photographic series thematically. Forward Escape into the Past can be understood as a future far removed from technological progress, in which human beings seek a connection with their past and with nature."

- Valerie Verhack, in exhibition text for FORWARD ESCAPE INTO THE PAST at M-Museum Leuven (BE)

EXPLORE

SELECTED WORKS

INSIDE OUT

2017

FRAMED ARCHIVAL PIGMENT PRINT

191,4 x 153 cm

Instalation view, Forward Escape Into the Past, De Brakke Grond, Amsterdam (NL)

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Peter Rabbit, Drop City ,

New York: The Olympia Press,

Inc., 1971

The installation in De Brakke Grond (Amsterdam, NL) consisted out of materials found in the building of De Brakke Grond itself; old theater decor panels including any wear and tear, and scraps of wood. The reusing of materials mirrors the lifestyles of Drop City residents, an autarkic, utopian movement which was based in Colorado. Living as hunter-gatherers they created their utopian community using locally sourced materials.

PSILOCYBIN CUBENSIS

2017

FRAMED ARCHIVAL PIGMENT PRINT

50 x 40 cm

CLEAR LIGHT

2018

FRAMED ARCHIVAL PIGMENT PRINT

80 x 63 cm

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Terrence Mckenna, Food of the Gods: The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge a Radical History of Plants, Drugs, and Human Evolution, Bantam, 1993

"The references to McKenna’s ideas prompted Campers to take studio shots of these mushrooms (Psylocybin cubensis, 2017) and to travel to the Tassili plateau in South Algeria. There he photographed details of rock carvings of cattle, whose manure created fertile soil for the mushrooms (Cow, 2017 and Gazelle, 2017). McKenna used these rock carvings to support his hypothesis in the book Food of the Gods (1992). This same theory also forms the starting point for Campers to make indirect contentual links and to experiment with abstraction. Following on from the psychedelic light shows of the early 1960s, which accompanied electronic music or avant-garde theatre, he photographed objects such as clock glasses on a lightbox projector filled with oil, pigment and alcohol (Liquid Light, 2017)." - Valerie Verhack in the exhibition text for FORWARD ESCAPE INTO THE PAST, M-museum Leuven (BE) 2018

GAZELLE

2015

FRAMED ARCHIVAL PIGMENT PRINT

50 x 40 cm

Instalation view, Forward Escape Into the Past, M-Museum, Leuven (BE)

ACCESS TO TOOLS

2017

FRAMED ARCHIVAL PIGMENT PRINT

63 x 80 cm

1/11

For M Leuven I designed a setting consisting of walls constructed from blocks of hemp. Although mechanically produced, they are shaped and pressed according to centuries-old principle. The material is durable and very light making it ideal for building partition walls or as insulation. In this sense, the building material is in keeping with ecology, sustainability, technology ingenuity and a return to nature: all themes that form a thread running through

the exhibition.