Lecture: 'Sistaaz of the Castle'

Jan Hoek (1984) is our guest on 10th November, he recently won the Dutch Design Award for a collaboration with Duran Lantink, with the project 'Sistaaz of the Castle’ in the category Fashion. Next to that he is nominated for the Volkskrant Beeldende Kunst Prijs, a dutch art price for an artist under 35 years old.

Hoek has photographed amateur models, mentally ill homeless people in Africa, a girl with no arms and legs, a heroin addict who dreams of being a model, or people he has simply found in advertisements on the internet. The photo shoot is never what he expected, model and photographer always have different expectations. The model actually wants sex while Jan Hoek wants to shoot the dog. The model tries to be as glamorous as possible, while Jan wants to picture the decay. Photographing is not just about the image but also the relationship between the photographer and the model. How far can you go with your models? In the accompanying film, Me & My Models, Jan talks about the nasty, funny, painful or touching things that happen around photographing people.

“I believe there is always a certain degree of ethics involved in photography. It is almost impossible to take photographs of people without consciously, or unconsciously, crossing boundaries and with things happening that you don’t want or expect. I feel this is often covered up in photography, while I would like to show it … “

Students react to the lecture of guest speaker Jan Hoek

The artwork for this lecture consists of a series of Jan's portraits that Danielle and Sue were reproducing while having their hands bounded.