Kristien Daem

Kristien Daem has acquired fame since the 1980's for her photo series that mainly focus on the subject of architecture. In these photographs she manipulates the light and the context or the environment in which a particular architecture functions. La Cabane for instance, is a photo series in which Kristien Daem takes a wood shack in Renaix, built by Paul Robbrecht, as the point of departure for a photographic exploration of space, light, and environment. The regular revisiting of a place, through which different and new impressions of the place are created, is one of her characteristic working methods.

The Tableaux project brings together three photo series which Kristien Daem made in the period 2006-2008. She took a photograph of a pier at the Belgian coast every day at the same time and from the same position, over a period of fourteen days. Tableaux I shows the pier in Blankenberge, Tableaux II the pier in Ostend, and Tableaux III has the pier of Nieuwpoort as its subject. One day there is a clear sky, the next it is misty or gloomy, one day it is low tide, the next high tide, … A desolate and uncanny atmosphere pervades the images. For the production of her video, Kristien Daem uses 14 photos of one of the piers. In a subtle way, the one image slides over the other. The changes in the light, the tides, and the water reflections are barely perceptible. In this way every series becomes a reflection on time and light, but also on memory and impermanence.