AMYGDALA
By Jeroen De Wandel
© Jeroen De Wandel
ABOUT THE PROJECT
Amygdala, De Wandel's most recent project, refers to the place in the brain where emotional memories are created, stored and processed. Some memories are very strongly anchored in our brains, other memories get coloured or change during the passing of time. De Wandel tries, by using a collage of (digital/analogue) layers of archive pictures (own and found footage), to express the multiple layers of these memories. Fragments from the past lose their context in the present and their attachment to reality gradually fades away. This triggers some questions. Is our memory accurate and can we trust it? Do we create dream images about existing places/people, about ourselves? Is what we see really what we see and experience? Or does our brains also deliver some fake news? Can we implant new memories?
Two book dummies are ready to meet the world: Amygdala Alpha and Amygdala Bèta. Where Alpha focuses on strong memories with often pure photography, almost without manipulation, Bèta is about coloured memories, disturbed dreams and uses collages or manipulated images.
AMYGDALA ALPHA
AMYGDALA BÈTA
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Jeroen De Wandel (b. 1980) lives and works in Ghent, Belgium. He uses material from his personal archive to generate new images. He combines, recomposes, cuts, tears and pastes both analogue and digital pictures in his search for the unexpected.
De Wandel’s work becomes more and more a mix of photography, collage and other types of visual/installation art, sometimes presented as object, sometimes as picture/artefact of atelier made installations. It’s no longer pure photography. Starting point is still his archive of (autobiographical) pictures, interests and experiences. Main themes as time, memories, the working of the brain, relationship of photography with paintings and re-use/recycling are common in his work.
De Wandel was shortlisted on Sony World Photography Awards in 2017 with his ensō – series and got selected in 2018 with Amygdala for the Young Artist Development Program (.tiff) of FoMu, the museum of photography in Antwerp and part of Futures Photography platform. He was selected for Futures (European program for young artists) and Festival Circulations 2020 (FR).
Next to his visual arts, he works as an event manager and he has his own record label, called Icarus.
JEROEN DE WANDEL & PEP
Jeroen De Wandel participated in PEP's fourth collective exhibition "New Talents"
For this final exhibition of 2019, we asked photographers from all over the world to share what is at the very heart of their practice and show what they have the most talent for. Through this exhibition, the selected artists presented what intrinsically moves them in their quest for images and showcased their most personal and diverse approaches to image making.
Amygdala by Jeroen De Wandel, from the PEP exhibition "New Talents"