Solo exhibition at KRETS, Malmö, Sweden, October 2012.

During the last years I have been traveling between Amsterdam, Sweden and the Caribbean. These are places I know and love, but where I also get constant reminders that I do not ‘belong’ – because of language, history, habits and cultural heritage. Maybe that is why the details of each place have become so important to me; when I walk in the woods or the mondi, I feel connected, and when I am alone in a cottage on the Swedish countryside or in a house on Curacao, I feel ‘home’. It is not about a country or national identity, but more about connecting to a place; a mood, atmosphere or state of mind.

The notion of not belonging anywhere made the actual sites my focus and subject. Landscapes, smells and sound – all this have a strong impact. My work became a mash of real places and events – a sort of self-invented mythology and a drifting from one place to another (like a fever dream). My mind sorts things in a different way nowadays. National borders and the perspective of time are more floating; past, present and future more blurred together. I Belong Nowhere is a visual extension of that. All places are real, just not geographically at the same place. In my mind they interlace and mix with dreams and hang-ups. The outcome is maybe a surreal compote – but for me it binds all bits and pieces together.