Sander van Wettum (1987/NL) is a photographer and artist, based in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

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(+31) 0628160163

mail@sandervanwettum.com

Studio: Drift12 Collective, Zaagmolendrift 12, 3035JA, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.

Commissioned work

I work on a regular base for clients, specializing on Art exhibition documentation and reportage work. I was fortunate to work for many great clients like NRC Next, Kesselskramer, Nationale Nederlanden, TENT Rotterdam, Melly, Gallerie Wilfried Lentz and many others. Don’t hesitate to contact me for more information or a portfolio.

Artist statement

My work deals with the experience of abstraction and alienation in the everyday built environment. I seek out urban places that seem to withdraw from their surroundings, with no apparent relationship to their environment or history. I am interested in the moment when the intended use context disappears, giving rise to an absurd new reality. Office parks after hours, new housing developments without inhabitants, or desolate beach resorts in winter: these island-like (non)places generate numerous paradoxical tensions. They are constructed environments that hold a certain optimistic promise, while they can also be seen as failed and depressing.

The photographic image is my starting point. I take long walks in cities, and with my analogue medium-format camera, I frame the reality I see, further removing these places from their context. In this way I create new spaces that no longer refer to a precise location, but form an imaginary landscape of typologies, ideas and atmospheres. These images are not so much records or documents, but rather an archive of building blocks. This archive constitutes the source of my work: an autonomous space within which I can discover new internal connections, and from which I can create new realities. Within this archive, the images have no established form, meaning or hierarchy. Depending on the (exhibition) context they are rearranged in new categories and material forms. Some examples in recent years give a flavour of the divergent possibilities: installations, maquettes, performances and film.