2011.06
A FLOATING ATELIER
Sponsoring
How can you feel in the middle of nowhere in a highly densely populated country like the Netherlands?
Located in the southwest of Almere, Floating Life represent a first step toward the future developments of its waterfront called Almere Pampus. Thank you to Mr Arie Willem Bijl; Denis could use the space as an atelier during the years he has worked on the project Freedomland. The photo is available as a limited edition art print.
A floating life | Almere Pampus 2012 | 80 x 60 cm Ed. 5 | © Denis Guzzo
2011.04
OUR DARK PLACE
Finally! Denis completed the building of his own darkroom in Rotterdam. After spending years collecting all the equipment and more than two months working on the installation. A dream come through! Now he is able to execute my own black& white developments and print both colour and black & white.
A very special thank you to Joan! To celebrate a short film that resumes the whole process within a timelapse was realized! Click the image or Vimeo icon to watch it.
2011.03
POLDEREN!
In the Netherlands, NieuwLand and Batavialand: museum+archive+study centre is a very important archive and cultural institution regarding water management worldwide. It is located at the waterfront of Lelystad.
For the interactive permanent-exhibition Polderen! The museum asked Denis to realize a video installation where aerial photographs from the Freedomland project are mixed with interactive mapping. BataviaLand combines the treasures of maritime archaeology within the experience of the contemporary Dutch landscape. NieuwLand has been supporting Freedomland both for the research and the first publication.
2011.01
FREEDOMLAND: THE NEW ATLANTIS
Solo exhibition at Agora Theater
This amazing architecture, built by UN Studio, is the main subject of the aerial photograph Landed on Agora. While my exploration of the Flevo polder is still a work in progress, this solo exhibition shows the first body of work developed for graduation at the Royal Academy of Art The Hague in June 2010. It evokes the image of a 21st-century Atlantis that has risen again from the waves. This photograph is shot on a large format negative from the plane, using the legendary Kodak Aereo Ektar lens. The solo exhibition will be on show for two months.
2011.01 - 2011.03
Agora Theater | Lelystad | NL
Realized in collaboration with Agora Theater, Art Affair, Municipality of Lelystad and Eyes on Media.
Landed on Agora | Lelystad NL | 88 x 110 cm | C-print Ed. 5 | 2010
2010.12
NEW MYSTERIES
The Beginning
Sometimes it takes the time of 'click' to get fascinated and decide to work for the long term on something. During the scouting around Athens in November 2010, Denis found the town of Eleusis, an extraordinary location to develop a new project. By taking this photograph the temporary title of the project was born: Wasting Mythology. Backstage photo courtesy of Vanja Bucan.
2010.07
ITALIAN GLANCE SEES LELYSTAD AS THE NEW ATLANTIS
DE VOLKSKRANT
July 2nd, 2010 Volkskrant NL | Art section, page 55 - Denis's presentation of Freedomland: work in progress has been highlighted in the national newspaper De Volkskrant article about the Royal Academy of Arts graduation exhibition in Den Haag.
Translated from Dutch, article by Marina de Vries:
"Sometimes, you need a foreign view to value Dutch ingeniousness. Cities such as Lelystad and Almere are often considered the ugliest in the country, but the Italian photographer Denis Guzzo sees nothing less than a new chapter of Atlantis, a mythical paradise of freedom and space. Guzzo alternates his scale-model perspective with refined zoomed details, and he combines old and authentic maps with Google Earth images, houses with romantic fields, and smooth with rough paper so that a whole new peculiar, layered and optimistic appears of the Dutch urban landscape…."
2010.06
FREEDOMALAND
Graduation exhibition
Denis presents the results of the first half-year of work on the Freedomland project for the graduation exhibition. Focusing on a multiplicity of landscape perceptions, photographs are presented in different formats and paper types within an organic composition. As a mobile exhibition platform, both wooden displays, the Hd screen, and the printer are all mounted on wheels. Most of the photographs have been printed on location. The short HD documentary, What we never thought we could be, tells the story of this territory as a contemporary myth using satellite images and archive footage mixed with my aerial photographs.
JUNE 26TH, 2010 – JULY 3RD, 2011
Kabk: Royal Academy Of Art
2011.05
CHAMBER OF SECRETS
Study
As a spin-off of the Freedomland project, this study was executed in one of the most fascinating industrial heritage of the Netherlands, called Waterloopbos, the former Hydraulic Test fields in the Noordoostpolder. Fifty years of water management studies are left behind and being taken back by nature. The title refers to this unique knowledge of the Dutch in water management and it is inspired by the atmosphere of the film Stalker by Tarkovsky.
Chamber of secrets #2 | Waterloopbos 2011 | 110 x 88 cm Ed. 5
2011.03
NEVER SO BRIGHT
Comissioned by Stichting De Barak, Lelystad.
We spent the night taking photos at the left behind the station in Lelystad Zuid, it was -2 C° and a lot of work, but I aspect outstanding results from these large-format negatives.
!!! A very special thank you to Tessa Janssen, Elias Tieleman and Judith Flapper for their precious support.!!
2010.06
FREEDOMLAND: WORK IN PROGRESS
Limited edition book
This book is a limited edition of 50 copies published celebrating Denis's graduation at the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, in the Netherlands. 64 pages – 25 colour photographs.
Special thanks for their contribution to Maarten Hoofstra: for the inspiration and help with the research. Arjan Agema and the staff of Nieuw Land: museum + archief + studiecentrum. Arjen Oosterman: preface text. Marnix Dekker: translations. Sarah Michael: proofreading.
This limited edition was sold out within ten days.
2011.10
ARCHITECTURE FILM FESTIVAL ROTTERDAM
The floating spirit of Frank van Klingeren has been selected for the AFFR 2011. The screening in the foyer will be combined with the lightbox photo installation 'Seasons of the Limbo'.
This multidisciplinary documentary project captures the deconstruction and displacement of the Youth Hostel Ockenburg. The steel and glass building designed by architect Frank van Klingeren in 1967 was slowly disassembled in 2010 over the course of six months.
