I have always been fascinated by cultural diversity and the resilience of people to adapt when faced with life-changing situations.
After finishing my Masters (MSc, 1993) in Cultural Anthropology, I took up photography (Fotoacademie, 1999) as a way to express what I was observing. The meaning of a photograph can be hidden in small things: a gesture, a look, an object, the surroundings… or perhaps the absence thereof. Places or spaces, with or without human beings… elements like these can tell stories, though not everything can be read from the surface. How then, can you make visible that which is not always seen?
To further deepen my knowledge of images, of what and how they communicate, I enrolled in the Masters program (MA, 2012) Film and Photographic Studies (part of Media Studies) at Leiden University and in 2012 wrote my MA thesis on the imagery of illness. I wanted to combine my studies (and interests) in a new project and in 2014-2015, I participated in a VII Photo Masterclass on visual story telling in Milan, Italy, while at the same time starting up my ongoing project ’Growing Up Orange’. In July 2015 I accompanied Celia to The Altiplano of Bolivia and met her biological family which resulted in the adoption story Altiplano Reunion: A Twin Returns.
In the summer of 2016, I was ‘Artist in Residence’ at the AADK in Blanca, Spain. A month of hard work: thinking, reading, exploring, getting to know people, photographing and driving around the region of Murcia, Spain. A month that inspired me and where I started up my new project ’ Floating on the Whims of Dreams’ which I continued working on in September 2017, while I was an Artist in Residence at Pinea-Linea de Costa in Rota, Spain.
Next to my own independent projects, I work as a documentary and editorial photographer for several clients.
And last, but not least, I am a lecturer at the Fotoacademie in Amsterdam, where I teach and coach students. A reciprocatory act; I inspire them and they inspire me.
Group Exhibitions 2011 – 2017
2017 FFN Fotofestival Naarden ’Altplano Reunion: A Twin Returns’.
2015 Museum IJsselstein
2011 Noorderlicht, FaCeForward Revisited
2011 FFN Fotofestival Naarden, Galerie de Lage Flanck, FaCeForward
Nominaties PANL (Photograhic Awards of the Netherlands) 2000, 2004 en 2005.
Denier van der Gon, Aleid, Van Tuijl, Fieke, De Waterketen, Uitgeverij Duo/Duo, Rotterdam, 2001
® All images Aleid Denier van der Gon
After finishing my Masters (MSc, 1993) in Cultural Anthropology, I took up photography (Fotoacademie, 1999) as a way to express what I was observing. The meaning of a photograph can be hidden in small things: a gesture, a look, an object, the surroundings… or perhaps the absence thereof. Places or spaces, with or without human beings… elements like these can tell stories, though not everything can be read from the surface. How then, can you make visible that which is not always seen?
To further deepen my knowledge of images, of what and how they communicate, I enrolled in the Masters program (MA, 2012) Film and Photographic Studies (part of Media Studies) at Leiden University and in 2012 wrote my MA thesis on the imagery of illness. I wanted to combine my studies (and interests) in a new project and in 2014-2015, I participated in a VII Photo Masterclass on visual story telling in Milan, Italy, while at the same time starting up my ongoing project ’Growing Up Orange’. In July 2015 I accompanied Celia to The Altiplano of Bolivia and met her biological family which resulted in the adoption story Altiplano Reunion: A Twin Returns.
In the summer of 2016, I was ‘Artist in Residence’ at the AADK in Blanca, Spain. A month of hard work: thinking, reading, exploring, getting to know people, photographing and driving around the region of Murcia, Spain. A month that inspired me and where I started up my new project ’ Floating on the Whims of Dreams’ which I continued working on in September 2017, while I was an Artist in Residence at Pinea-Linea de Costa in Rota, Spain.
Next to my own independent projects, I work as a documentary and editorial photographer for several clients.
And last, but not least, I am a lecturer at the Fotoacademie in Amsterdam, where I teach and coach students. A reciprocatory act; I inspire them and they inspire me.
Group Exhibitions 2011 – 2017
2017 FFN Fotofestival Naarden ’Altplano Reunion: A Twin Returns’.
2015 Museum IJsselstein
2011 Noorderlicht, FaCeForward Revisited
2011 FFN Fotofestival Naarden, Galerie de Lage Flanck, FaCeForward
Nominaties PANL (Photograhic Awards of the Netherlands) 2000, 2004 en 2005.
Denier van der Gon, Aleid, Van Tuijl, Fieke, De Waterketen, Uitgeverij Duo/Duo, Rotterdam, 2001
® All images Aleid Denier van der Gon