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Untitled. From the series 'I am about to call it a day'

DEPOORTER, Bieke

© DACS 2025/Amgueddfa Cymru - Museum Wales
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Written on the back of this work is: “By asking people I accidentally meet on the street to spend the night in their home, I often enter in the intimacy of people’s lives. I like to photograph the moment when the night falls and people return to their homes, close their doors and put their nightwear on. In between two days, when no one is looking, there is a little moment where the facade falls away.

I find it very difficult to choose my most 'intimate photograph', because I experienced so many. People often shared their bed with me; I fell asleep while children and mamas were holding me tight, in a single-bed next to a very old Mexican woman who prayed for my family in the middle of the night. People invited me into Russian saunas and into American hot-tubs and when I was welcomed by an old couple in Bosnia, the man of the family died that night.

But after consideration, I would like to share a photograph with you that is part of my book I am about to call it a day. While being together in …. 's bedroom and after photographing her, I realized something important. Photography is about sharing, it is a conversation that goes in two directions. It was not only me that observed her, but through me, she looked at herself. After a long time together in her bedroom and after this picture was taken, the woman stood up in her white night dress, crying intensely; she gave me a long hug and went to sleep.” — Bieke Depoorter


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Details

Collection

Amgueddfa Cymru - Museum Wales

Item Number

NMW A 55476

Creation/Production

DEPOORTER, Bieke
Date: 2015

Acquisition

Gift, 25/4/2017
Donated by David Hurn, 2017

Measurements

(): h(cm) image size:9.4
(): h(cm)
(): w(cm) image size:14
(): w(cm)
(): h(cm) paper size:15.2
(): w(cm) paper size:15.1

Techniques

Digital Pigment Print

Material

Paper

Location

In store
More

Tags

  • Architecture And Buildings
  • Art And Design Movements
  • Bed
  • Communities And Society
  • Concepts And Emotions
  • Depoorter Bieke
  • Fine Art
  • Identity
  • Intimacy
  • Key Design Elements
  • People
  • Photograph
  • Pink
  • Sleeping
  • Woman
  • Woman Artist
  • Works On Paper

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