Willem van Zoetendaal made me look more careful at the photographs by Sara Blokland. It was at the time he was invited by Hans Locher to curate the Fotokabinetten exhibitions at the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag. It was at that time that i began to realizxe and see that photography was a very interesting and highly personal search for the inner soul of the photographed. The persons depicted in the photograph were not ordinary models but their appearance reflected their inner soul. Koos Breukel was one of them and surely Sara Blokland was the other with whom i experienced this.
Sara Blokland (1969 NL) is a visual artist, independant researcher and curator of photography. She lives and works in Amsterdam. She studied at the Rietveld Academy (BA in photography) and graduated at the Sandberg Institute (MFA photography and video) in the Netherlands and a MA in Film and Photographic Studies from the Leiden University.
As a visual artist she is predominately working with photography. Her work reflects on the complicated role of this medium in relation to the histories of individuals, the concept of ‘family’ and culture heritage. Blokland’s films and photographic works have a strong focus on the portrait and landscape as part of identity and memory. Internationally her work has been exhibited in venues such as Kumho Museum (Seoul, Korea) and Gallery Lmak-projects (New York) the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, the Museum of Modern Art (Arnhem, Netherlands) and Gemeentemuseum The Hague (Netherlands). Her work is part of several private and public collections, such as the ABN-AMRO Collection, the Rabobank Collection, Museum of Fine Arts in Houston and Gemeentemuseum The Hague. She was also the photographer and editor of the book Van Waarde [Of Value] (2008) and the photographer of the publication The Surinam Police Band (2009).
Since 2009, she is the co-founder and co-director of UNFIXED Projects. The organization aims to create platforms for dialogue about photography, contemporary art and theory with a strong focus on cultural identity. In 2010 UNFIXED projects organized in cooperation with the Center for Contemporary Art Dordrecht in the Netherlands, the UNFIXED exhibition, artist-residency , workshop and symposium. Sara co-edited the publication: UNFIXED – photography and post colonial perspectives in contemporary art, which was co-published by Jap Sam Book in Spring 2012.
www.ftn-books.com has a very nice Sara Blokland publication available which was published by Willem van Zoetendaal.
