Desolated landscapes, meteorological phenomena, ruines of Utopian architecture. And dryly photographed minerals to subdued and enigmatic images of his children. At first glance, the world Geert Goiris creates in his photographs seems very diverse. Photography, traditionally a medium that records the past, transforms in Goiris’s hands into a medium that seems to depict the future.
Last month, he spoke with Ernst van Alphen at Galerie Onrust about his work. Their conversation touched on analog photography and the importance of expectation; the overlap between staging and reality; and about creating stories. Do stories reside within the photograph itself? Or do they unfold in the viewer’s mind? They also discussed the information deficit in photos and Goiris’s diverse presentation forms. But above all, it was a conversation about time, the photographer’s quintessential material. The vastness of time, the absence of time, and the relationship between time, imagination, and memory. Goiris: “I am fascinated by time scales that transcend the human.”
Esther Darley
