Artwork: Viviane Sassen, Rorschach, 2013, Ultrachrome print, 18 x 12 inches, Edition of 5, and Elspeth Diederix, Karawara and Frangipani, 2014 Archival pigment print, 47-1/4 x 31-1/2 inches, Edition of 5.
Viviane Sassen (b. 1972 in Amsterdam) and Elspeth Diederix (b. 1971 in Nairrobi, Kenya) first met as teenagers in art class. Individually, they have risen to prominence as photographers: Sassen for her fashion work and Diederix for her still lifes, both infusing their photography with an eloquent balance of mystery elegance, and joy. Though they pursued different paths, they maintained a close a close friendship, both citing their shared childhood experiences of coming of age in Africa as Europeans as formative to their aesthetic sensibilities.
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Individually they craft sonnets and soliloquies, beautiful poems of light, shape, and color that stir the soul like the softest breeze. Each in their own right is a master of the medium, crafting the world anew, showing us a new way of seeing that invokes the infinite spirit of the universe. Brought together, their distinct bodies of work effortlessly merge in a duet of harmony, rhythm, and verve as seen in the new exhibition Viviane Sassen Pikin Slee & Elspeth Diederix In These Shadows, on view at Casemore Kirkeby, San Francisco, now through December 22, 2016.
Viviane Sassen, Fredje, 2013 ,Ultrachrome print, 18 x 12 inches, Edition of 5
The works featured in Pikin Slee were made in a former Dutch colony deep in Suriname, accessible only by a three-hour canoe journey into the rainforest. Founded by the Maroon people, former African slaves who had escaped the plantations, fled into the woods, and made settlements, Pikin Slee is home to the Saramacca community. Here there is no running water and very little electricity—it is simply a continuation of life as it has always been for people who have forged their own freedom from a country with designs to oppress and exploit them.
The Dutch language allowed them to connect, bridging the diaspora across three continents. Here Viviane Sassen entered the space in the most subtle and nuanced of ways, integrating herself into the very elements of the earth, water, wind, and air. As a result, her photographs come to us as fragments of a profound experience, one that transcends the subject and speaks to the great, vast histories of the diaspora and its rich legacies, as lived through its descendants today.
Viviane Sassen, Vela, 2013, Ultrachrome, print 18 x 12 inches, Edition of 5
Elspeth Diederix, on the other hand, stayed home in order to leave the world photographing her studio garden in Amsterdam and the murky depths off the coast of Holland in order to create These Shadows, a body of work that will take your breath away. Here she discovers the delicious, delirious beauty of Nature in her element and the way in which it easily transports us out of the wo/manmade structures of daily life.
Elspeth Diederix, Kolpakowskiana & Pulmonaria, 2015, Archival pigment print, 47-1/4 x 31-1/2 inches, Edition of 5
Informed by the traditions of Dutch still life painting and the reverence for what is not long for this world, Diederix’s photographs embrace the temporality of life and the constant, quietly compelling harbinger of death. But here death is not a threat so much as it is another plane, another manifestation of matter that none of us understand or can explain. But it is this shadow that adds a depth to the beauty and emotion of life, to the joys of love and the sadness of loss.
Both Diederix and Sassen take us to the space where freedom merges with the unknown, to the very edge of existence that calls to the bravest of souls. Their work, both individually and together, reminds us that destiny is ours to create, and in following their own paths, they have brought us to the same place.
Elspeth Diederix, Flameflower, 2009, Archival pigment print, 59 x 45-3/4 inches, Edition of 5
Miss Rosen is a New York-based writer, curator, and brand strategist. There is nothing she adores so much as photography and books. A small part of her wishes she had a proper library, like in the game of Clue. Then she could blaze and write soliloquies to her in and out of print loves.
