While I continue to explore the possibilities of digital polaroid photography, in a happy coincidence I read about Belgian photographer Anton Kusters‘ 2020 Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize nomination. Kusters’ installation The Blue Skies Project references the Holocaust, in particular Nazi concentration camps, and was created with the help of contemporary reference books, Google Earth — and a Polaroid camera.
His use of self-processing polaroid photographs — 1078 of them to be exact — adds to the creative adaptations of the unique analog medium. More importantly, it adds a deeper dimension to his pensive, conceptual work, as the photos are apt to degrade and fade over time — much like memories of the Holocaust.
It’s a commentary on how we deal with memory. If we lock it away, it might be protected but never seen. And if we show it, it might fade and evolve into something else entirely.
I first came across Kusters’ work almost a decade ago when I saw his compelling Yakuza project. His approach to photography has since evolved from using a camera to document what interested him to expressing ideas through — as he puts it — photographic processes. The work resulting from this new approach is no less compelling and I think quite worthy of a Deutsche Börse prize.
basili mobile images 