‘The Umbilical Vein‘ is our first self-published photobook that is in the making. A photobook that bundles our analogue image archives made from 1990 till 2003. The dummy will be presented during the solo exhibition at ‘De Brakke Grond’ in Amsterdam on 19 September till 3 November 2013. More information soon.

 The Umbilical Vein © Marilène Coolens 1996 / taken from The Analogue Image Archives (1990 – 2003)

My mother, Marilène Coolens, always made sure we were expressing ourselves as children, she made us dance, dress up and invent our own plays. Mostly a kid will pick up on that what is given. So our collaboration was a natural thing that happened and continues up till now.

In some way my childhood photographic memories exists of these analogue images made from 1990 till 2003, of semi-staged moments where Marilène was the photographer who handled the scenery and the light as well and where I had all freedom and got be to any character, charchters I wanted to be, didn’t want to be or just be for a little while. They are images that document what we lived and what happened in the nineties and they capture the intimacy of our relationship at the same time, hence their imperfection that leads to a rough beauty. Images made with the belief they would never be bundled into a book and be shown. But images convinced they should be bundled into a book once my father had made the remark early 2000: ‘You Should Make a Book’

The essence of our continuing collaboration and what we still do now is to be found in our analogue image archives’ that spread over fifteen years of images made in the nineties and the beginning of 2000. A rough and honest representation of our umbilical vein, the one you normally never get to see. It is the only analogue image material we have within our work, for now we are a very digital duo.