Soft Horizons

Over the last 12 years, I have made many extensive travels to the Altiplano of Bolivia. Accompanied by the Bolivian performance artist Gastón Ugalde and some of his assistants we would cross the Andes with a 4wheel drive in search for good locations to make performances and installations. Fascinated by the beauty of the surreal Andes landscapes, I utilize this as my canvas.
Like the salt desert Salar where an enormous space of whiteness covers over 10,000km² of salt flats. Or the colored lakes in the south of the country, like the red Laguna Colorada, where the earth is colored by minerals. In these remote places the indigenous Aymara people seem to live more in balance with nature. You feel a strong sense of pride for their land, for nature. I found it inspiring that Bolivia is the only country on earth where there is a law that defines Mother Earth as "a collective subject of public interest".

Pentagon, 2007
Five balls thrown into the air at the foothills of two dormant volcanos. In the last 10,000 years, these volcanos have not erupted.

Harvest Time, 2006
Bowler hats hanging on fishing wire above the steam coming out of a geyser. Quechua women have worn these hard felt hats ever since British railway workers introduced them there in the 1920s. These hats were fabricated using steam.

Flash, 2006
Llama with inflated condoms standing on the salt flats. On the barren and withered highlands of the Andes, hardly any animal can survive and propagate.

Drop Your Darlings, 2007
Translucent balloons scattered across the surface of the prehistoric Lake Minchin from which almost all water has evaporated and drifted away in the air.

Discovery, 2006
A gigantic cactus between a naked woman’s legs. This cactus has grown for 200 years on Isla del Pescado, a small island rising up in the middle of the world’s largest salt desert.

Out of Continuum, 2007
At sunset, a female salt miner places the moon amongst the clouds.

Vanishing Traces, 2006
An installation of white balloons floating on the red water of Laguna Colorada – a reference to Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty. The photo is a light homage to Smithson, who originally wanted to create his spiral in this Bolivian lake, but at that time, the early 1970s, the site was too hard to access.

Potosi, 2007
A silver bracelet of miners sitting in the foothills of ‘Cerro Rico’, the rich mountain. From this place the Spaniards took their silver and used the locals for mining, who became infected with crystalline dust. The locals attributed their deaths to El Tio, the lord of the underworld who lives inside the mountain.

Balloon Line, 2007
Performance with Bolivian artist Gastón Ugalde and Scarlett Hooft Graafland, dressed in white clothes in the white salt desert separated by and connected with a line of white balloons balancing between their bodies.

Blue Line, 2007
A line of synthetic blue carpet lying along a straight line of rare Yareta moss. This type of moss only grows in the withered highlands of the Andes.

Blue Carpet, 2007
The pattern of the rare Yareta moss of Sajama National Park cut out in sheets of synthetic blue carpet. This type of moss only grows in the withered highlands of the Andes.



Pentagon
120 x 150 cm (edition 4)
100 x 125 cm (edtition 4)

Harvest Time
120 x 150 cm (edition 4)
100 x 125 cm (edtition 4)

Flash
120 x 150 cm (edition 4)
100 x 125 cm (edtition 4)

Drop your Darlings
120 x 150 cm (edition 4)
100 x 125 cm (edtition 4)

Discovery
150 x 120 cm (edition 4)
125 x 100 cm (edtition 4)

Out of Continuum
120 x 150 cm (edition 4)
100 x 125 cm (edtition 4)

Vanishing Traces
120 x 150 cm (edition 4)
100 x 125 cm (edtition 4)

Potosi
120 x 150 cm (edition 4)
100 x 125 cm (edtition 4)

Balloon Line
150 x 120 cm (edition 4)
125 x 100 cm (edtition 4)

Blue Line
80 x 100 cm (edition 3)

Blue Carpet
120 x 150 cm (edition 4)
100 x 125 cm (edtition 4)