Boerentafereel – Peasant scenery
January 31, 2009
Hoe onze voorouders leefden, kunnen we ons niet meer herinneren. Deze foto herkennen we omdat de foto andere beelden oproept: schilderijen, schoolreizen naar Bokrijk… De visie achter deze reconstructie komt uit de negentiende eeuw. Als reactie tegen de toenemende industrialisatie ging men het primitieve boerenleven idealiseren en musealiseren. ‘Kan ik dit nu nog wel fotograferen?’ vroeg ik me af. Noch het gefotografeerde, noch de foto zelf is origineel… En hoe verhoudt deze foto zich tot de foto’s die we graag van het authentieke leven van andere culturen maken?
We can’t remember how our ancestors lived. We recognize this photograph because we have similar images in our memory: paintings, open air museums… A 19th century vision lays behind this photographed reconstruction. As a reaction against upcoming industrialisation people idealize and musealize peasant primitive ways of lving. “Can I still photograph this?” I ask myself. Nor the subject, nor the photograph show an original vision. And how does this photograph compare to photographs we like from so called authentic cultures?
Photograph © Karin Borghouts, 2006, Openluchtmuseum Arnhem (NL) – published in the photo-essay ‘Verbeeld verleden’ (Portrayed past), in the book ‘De poppen aan het dansen’ (Dutch), edition MAS/Volkskundemuseum Antwerp and uitgeverij Vantilt, 2007.
C-print/dibond 100 x 125 cm. collection MAS/Antwerp
February 1, 2009 at 11:13 am
These pictures are so evocative.
Very nuce to see, but I don’t really understand what are they telling…
Could you write, please, some lines in english?
February 1, 2009 at 6:50 pm
Thanks you for the translation…
Now I better understand the need to reenact (in present time) an impossible past scenery. The effect is extraordinary!
February 1, 2009 at 9:30 pm
Dear Karin,
What do you mean by ‘noch de foto zelf is origineel’. You did sign it, didn’t you?
The problem with the comparison to pictures of other ‘authentic’ cultures has to do probably with the fact that we know what the ideological connotation is of photographs of Bokrijk or of our mythical past, and we don’t know the internal ideological value of pictures of exotic ‘authentic’ slices of life.
And even that is not true. When we look at photographs of the ‘authentic’ life of negroes in the Congo of the 20th century, we know exactly what the ideological content of it was.
February 2, 2009 at 11:02 am
Thanks for the comments.
Yes, I signed it, it’s original :-)
I mean, I made the photograph in a 19th century way.