Documentary photographer and KABK alumnus Jan Dirk van der Burg was appointed Photographer Laureate 2018 during the opening of the BredaPhoto Festival.
The Photographer Laureate acts as an ambassador for the Dutch photographic arts. It is an honour bestowed for a term of two years and is an initiative of the Dutch Photo Museum in Rotterdam, the foundation Fotoweek and FOAM in Amsterdam.
Jan Dirk van der Burg graduated at the KABK with a photo series about office culture. Olifantenpaadjes (2011) and Tweetbundels (2015) are among his most well known photobook projects.
“Jan Dirk van der Burg is a great ambassador for photography in the Netherlands, with his fresh and with a sense of humour peppered documentary style, in which he almost always captivates ‘typical Dutch’ topics."
In the 8th edition of BredaPhoto Festival, he presents Command-Shift-4, a photo series of found images categorised in themed sequences.
As a professional photographer he takes the role of curator: constantly searching for photos to categorise. Among his finds are series like ‘aldermen of mid-sized municipalities with a buzz cut’, and ‘radiator whores’: prostitutes advertising themselves next to radiators.
Command Shift 4 is on view until 21 October at Breda Photo Festival.
