Gomma Photography Grant 2021
Out of Place
Photographer
Bas Losekoot
Out of Place
28 Jan, 2022
Since the beginning of the Urban Millennium, we are facing the biggest wave of urbanisation in human history. In 2011, Bas Losekoot started a visual exploration on the consequences of growing population density. He selected nine fast growing megacities around the world that hold 20 million inhabitants, or will reach this number in the next couple of years. What does this excessive growth do with our sense of personal space in the public domain? The metropolis life is the modern version of the fight of the primitive man against nature. Where we normally had to run for our lives we now have to run for our jobs. We are not running for life-threatening danger but danger for exclusion. The struggle for survival remains the same. The project includes photography from the cities of New York, São Paulo, Seoul Mumbai, Hong Kong, London, Lagos, Istanbul and Mexico City. Losekoot photographed one month in each of these cities, placing flashlights in the most crowded streets of the city, creating an uncanny reality. By adding drama to the trivial, Losekoot is painting the theatre of the real life, where small gestures become dramatical events.
About the photographer
Bas Losekoot
Bas Losekoot is an artist and photographer whose work addresses socio-cultural issues in cities around the world. He uses cinematographic apparatus and techniques to challenge the understanding of everyday urban realities, as well as the limited narrative potential of documentary photography’s representations of truth. Though his practice combines concepts of mobility, sociology and urban theory, he uses intuition to visualise the human experience in modern megacities. He holds a BA in Fine Art Photography from the Royal Academy of the Arts in The Hague and an MA in Photography and Urban Cultures from Goldsmiths, University of London. He has exhibited internationally at galleries, museums and festivals, including BOZAR, Belgium; Voies-Off/Les Rencontres d’Arles, France; Jimei x Arles, China; Kaunas Photography Gallery, Lithuania, FotoIstanbul, Turkey; LagosPhoto, Nigeria; and Unseen Photo Fair, the Netherlands. A variety of international media outlets have featured his work, including The New York Times LENS Blog, The New Yorker Photo Booth, CNN Editions, The Guardian, Internazionale, Die Zeit, NRC Handelsblad, IMA Magazine and the British Journal of Photography.
