APPROACHING NOWHERE 

Text W.Janssen

Special project Musica Sacra 2015 Maastricht.

Commissioned work

Approaching Nowhere is the title of the exhibition of the work of Theo Derksen. Trying to approach nowhere sounds like there is a goal, namely finding nowhere. The question is whether we are capable of that. The nowhere is perhaps a useful concept in this case. An idea, therefore, that helps us not to want to be at a certain place / somewhere in a certain period of time.

The photographer Theo Derksen went on the road without having fully planned to arrive somewhere (at a designated place) at a specified time. He has chosen the adventure and is surprised by what he encounters along the way. People, things, a city, landscape, etc .. He recorded all that in 36 photos (selection).

As an artist he can use the images of what he has come across to show us nowhere. In the proverbial sense of the word: you are nowhere, you feel lost. For example, in the desolate of the landscape, in the loneliness of people, the alienating effect of a photographed thing and even of an entire city.

However, Theo Derksen chooses to show his photographs purely as a result of the route he has traveled. No more and no less. He brings the images together in a leporello. Originally a zigzag folded book, for the exhibition elaborated into an impressive installation. The photographs shown on it refer to stories. Stories that the viewer can come up with. For example, we are invited to embrace story telling using the photos shown as a dynamic way of being on the go. Let us be surprised by what we encounter without being immediately on the road. Under the motto Approaching Nowhere we capture images and tell stories