“It started with my sister, then friends, and ultimately people in the streets — I now have about fifty portraits,” Isa de Jong (1998) relates. The artist is currently working on the project Born in a Diamond Mine (2022-ongoing) for which she aims to photograph a hundred of her contemporaries.
“I’m fascinated by my own generation,” De Jong explains. This generation, Z, was born into a world riddled by crises. To find out how her sitters are dealing with a world on fire, she first extensively interviews them for four to six hours. Among other things, she asks them where they came from and where they would like to go. She then photographs them in their everyday surroundings. “As we obviously have a lot of common ground, it’s easy to talk to each other,” the artist says. This is also conducive to another important element of the project, namely the equal partnership between photographer and sitter. The final photo selection, for instance, is not made by De Jong, but entrusted to the persons portrayed. They are also asked to select a quote from the interview and write it underneath the photograph.
“I started doing photography because I was afraid of getting lonely. The camera became a kind of social prosthesis that gave me the courage to call on people and ask questions.” The artist is now noticing that the camera is almost disappearing. “I’m still in touch with all these people.” The photographic time capsule therefore says just as much about De Jong as it does about her entire generation.
Text: Milo Vermeire
Translation from Dutch to English: Marie Louise Schoondergang