Flatland Gallery is a Dutch contemporary art gallery, previously based in Utrecht and Paris, which relocated in 2012 to Amsterdam. Dutch photographer Anoek Steketee‘s language is unique in how she dares to create space in her work to form a reserve for what lies beyond comprehension. Layers in her work can be politically subversive, even the most innocent ones. In Love Radio, a project she did between 2012-2014 in Rwanda, Steketee’s use of light, makes the pictures become very intense, bringing her subjects into the light of understanding, an enlightenment that matches its surroundings in its logical darkness.
LOVE RADIO is a story of possible resilience of the people in Rwanda, transcends into a general study of the courage to address feelings of scapegoating and grievances fairly. It also questions another universal topic: the manipulative power of media in a society. The popular Rwandan radio soap opera, Musekewaya (“New Dawn”), and the everyday reality of its listeners are at the heart of the wide-ranging project. On the same radio frequency that urged Hutus to kill their Tutsi neighbors in 1994, the soap is now broadcast in hopes of bringing about reconciliation and helping to resolve the traumas of Rwanda’s past genocide.
On the face of it, LOVE RADIO is about this process of reconciliation; about grasping the hope of both the Tutsis and the Hutus to believe in the perspective of peace building in this conflict prone community. Yet through Steketee’s techniques the pensiveness of the listeners is brought to the fore by illuminating their thoughts. Their escape from the reconciliation in real life is felt in Steketee’s work. But what does reconciliation actually mean? And what is the power of fiction versus reality? What is the role of the media in these processes? Where do we stand in this? Part of LOVE RADIO was exhibited at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam.
Anoek Steketee was born in 1974 in Hoorn, the Netherlands. She is a graduate of the St. Joost Academy, Breda and the Royal Academy of Arts, The Hague. She has exhibited in numerous institutions such as Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, FOAM, Amsterdam, Lumc, Leiden, Tropenmuseum Amsterdam, FOTODOK, Utrecht, Nederlands Fotomuseum, Rotterdam, Genthof 12, Gent, Belgium, Museo de Arte Contemporaneo, Madrid, Spain, Boston Center for the Arts, Boston, USA and the Pataka Museum of Arts, Wellington, New Zealand. She has also participated in a wide range of festivals among which the Qetxo Photo Festival, Bilbao, Spain, Lagos Photo Festival, Lagos, Nigeria, Addis Photo Fest, Assis Ababa, Ethiopia, Festival Internacional de Fotografia Cabo Verde, Mindelo, Cape Verde and her work was part of the European Month of Photography, Vienna, Austria.
FAIR
Paris Photo 2015
From 12 to 15 November, 2015
Grand Palais
Avenue Winston Churchill
75008 Paris
France
