Artist
Seppe Vancraywinkel
Seppe Vancraywinkel (1998) grew up on the countryside in Hoegaarden, Belgium. He has always been surrounded by his close friends and they were always on the go, they still are. Since 2016 Vancraywinkel felt the need to capture these moments analog in black- and-white. Black and white is an important aspect in his work. It’s Seppes way of creating a filter that shields his dreamlike world from reality. He feels like colours are too close to reality, they can cause unnecessary distractions. Seppe Vancraywinkels work revolves around stories, shapes and scales.
vancraywinkel.seppe@gmail.com
@seppevancraywinkel
https://seppevancraywinkel.com/
Within The Bubble of Surroundings
First and foremost, this is an ode to friendship. One that was forged years ago between several boys living on the countryside, surrounding the small village of Hoegaarden.
The loyalty and unwithering spirit within their comradery, as well as the picturesque scenery with its plains and creeks, free to roam and explore, provided the ideal backdrop for Seppe Vancraywinkel to grow into the young romantic he is today.
As they got older and left the place that once connected them, in search for new ventures, Vancraywinkel imagines his friends and himself as moving through life inside a bubble that assumes form whenever they are together. Within their togetherness he finds solace and refuge, as the bubble is impermeable to demanding noises of the outer world.
Within the Bubble of Surroundings, Vancraywinkels year-long work, aims to document spontaneous moments in which both visual and affective traces of the bubble are noticeable. The selection grants an insight into an evolving yet solid friendship in which notions of time, space, adulthood, masculinity and intimacy are spontaneously and intuitively reconfigured in a playful manner.
But those who love, inevitably, also fear loss. The bubble works both ways. Its purpose is not only to shield and protect from outside pollution, but also to guard those inside, to preserve them. By capturing snapshots on black and white film, they start to resemble a dream, disconnected from time but forever fixed on film.
The 10th edition of .tiff reflects a diversity of voices, positions, and subject matter. It is a passionate group of artists and photographers, who each try to give personal answers to today’s questions. Gülsah Ayla Bayrak and Rami Hara take their personal histories of migration and stereotypes as a starting point to explore identification, mythification, and the idea of belonging. Lived experience also guides the work of Seppe Van Craywinkel and his celebration of freedom, friendship, and spontaneity. Where Arian Christiaens explores her family’s archive, searching for her own position as photographer, daughter, mother, lover, and woman, Lars Duchateau invites viewers to link possible narratives with cryptic large format photographs, each one inspired by newspaper articles.
Elsewhere, Barbara Debeuckelaere treads a thin line between fiction and reality, delving into the Romanian fanbase of the American television series Dallas; Ligia Poplawska considers emotions, solastalgia, and climate anxiety in a changing world; and Alice Pallot shines her light on the Lommel Sahara in Belgium, rendering it alien without any post-production.
These artists work across a variety of media, encompassing books, video and installations. Their stories are as diverse as their approach: documentary, analytical, poetic, conceptual, humorous, intimate and most of all fresh and thought-provoking.
Over the years, .tiff has succeeded in building a Belgian photography community that allows for an exchange of ideas and insights between artists, curators, critics, and researchers. The current selection shows that this community is ever growing - and that Belgian photography will continue to reinvent itself for many years to come.