Losing Our Minds
www.verloes.com
My photo belongs to my series “Losing our minds” which was taken at the beginning of the corona crisis 2020: a bizarre, but extremely fascinating period. Man loses his mind because a new and challenging stormy situation presents itself. Fear overpowers man, he freezes, starts to reflect on the world and on the punishment that Mother Nature sends. I want this poetic-philosophical reflection to speak through my images. In my series “Losing our minds” I consciously show only young people who are looking for themselves, for the meaning of life and the relationship between man and nature. It is sometimes difficult to draw the line between realism and surrealism, between reality and madness. Are those figures real or staged in my photos? Sometimes we as laymen have the same reaction: is this the real world in which we live or is this madness / surrealism? These are photos of ultra-Orthodox Jews who can enjoy their freedom in an unorthodox way in the storm (of their lives) and escape the lockdown.
My images however try to transcend the anecdotal and in that sense they not only reflect what is going on with the corona crisis in 2020, but they try to be a universal expression. They could have taken place anywhere in the world and not just on the Belgian coast where these photos were taken in one day and within one hour. The young people in my photos are of course symbols of change / revolution / going against the tide. They symbolize spring that starts anew every year.