Cuisine et dependances

(Kitchen and outbuildings)

There are some films that leave a lasting impression on me, and the latest is “Perfect Days” by Wim Wenders. “Perfect Days” is a slow, repetitive and meditative film about a man in his fifties who cleans public toilets in Tokyo. He does it with all the meticulousness in the world and when he's finished he goes and sits in a park to eat, look at the trees and take photos of them. It's a film that not only celebrates the mundanity of life, but also the love for that mundanity and the meaning it gives to life. When I left the film I too felt the need to go and clean toilets! Instead I went home and took photos of my kitchen.

cuisine et dependances is a series of photos taken spontaneously, and sometimes even with just an iPhone, in a kitchen I was in at the time. The kitchen symbolises everyday life, and it's with this notion that I approach this work. When I find myself alone in the kitchen, light and a certain atmosphere that is both meditative and blissful become my companions. But as the kitchen is often the warmest room, I'm not the only one to spend time there. Like Perfect Days, I celebrate the beauty of our daily lives, and the gentle slowness of the ‘unimportant’ moments from which life ultimately springs.