Papendorp

This work was made for the FOTODOK exhibition Transitions. Transitions is a co-production between FOTODOK (Utrecht, The Netherlands), Visual Studies Workshop / VSW (Rochester, NY, USA) and George Eastman House (Rochester, NY, USA) and was first shown during 2011 at VSW and George Eastman House; focussing on different aspects of the city of Rochester in relation to the downfall of the Eastman Kodak company.

In 2012 the same projects were on view at FOTODOK, but presented within a Dutch context by adding projects that focussed on the latest developments of urbanisation / de-urbanisation in The Netherlands.
My work was on view together with, and in contrast to, the works of Rogier Fokke, who made a series about Papendorp during the early nineties, when it was still a small farming community next to a canal opposite of the city of Utrecht. Around the year 2000 everyone living in Papendorp was relocated, a bridge was build to connect it to Utrecht and a modern business park arose where farmers once ploughed their lands. When the work was exhibited during 2012, a lot of the building grounds remained empty as were some of the finished offices, due to the economic crisis at the time.

Papendorp Business Park was designed by West 8 urban design and landscape architecture together with Wissing stedebouw en ruimtelijke vormgeving and won the 2009 Rietveld Award.

FOTODOK is an international space for documentary photography based in Utrecht. Since late 2008, it has brought urgent, underexposed, exciting, beautiful and socially engaged documentary stories to the attention of a broad local, national and global public. They do so through a diverse programme of exhibitions, critical lectures and debates, education and international cooperation and exchange.