WAANPLEKKEN - DELUSIONAL PLACES an interview with VIVIAN AMMERLAAN
In her ongoing photo series ‘Waanplekken’ (‘Delusional Places’), Vivian Ammerlaan (b. 1994, the Netherlands) explores ways of depicting the sublime – the feeling of awe and terror. Her inspiration stems from overwhelming landscapes, which she later re-creates in the studio.
Was there a specific location or a moment in time that ignited the concept for this body of work?
During my studies, attending a ceramics workshop, I attempted working with a casting plaster which eventually resulted in one of the first delusional places or, in Dutch, ‘waanplekken’. At the time of the workshop, I was particularly interested in mountain ranges.
As I was not able to travel during my studies, I staged these settings by building small landscapes from casting plaster and I then arranged them on a table. These fictional landscapes felt so much closer to me than most of my previously made photographs of real nature.
How would you define the concept of sublime and what role does it play in your imagery?
Everything I create revolves around the notion of the sublime. For me, it encompasses everything that cannot be put into words or an image; everything that is of enormous and undying beauty, and therefore extremely frightening. It is about the places where you can feel overpowered with awe and terror such as, giant cliffs, mountain ranges or ocean views.
To produce an image of ephemeral landscapes and the feelings they evoke, photographic documentation will never be good enough for me. Therefore, I use the method of staging - to construct table-top settings in a studio. Creating wilderness and untouched places with my own hands seems paradoxical, and it is. However, this exact paradox is revealing the impossibility of representation here, while it also supports my positioning as a photographer.
To what extent would you say that your photographs are a representation of reality?
I never re-created an actual location, literally, but some of my works are inspired by a certain place as it exists. But even in that case it’s not necessarily a reproduction. For instance, many people have told me that my photographs triggered in them vivid memories of places they visited in the past. Therefore, my photographs are not a representation of reality, but rather function as triggers of memories that correspond with the viewer’s reality.
In respect to the viewer, what is the ultimate goal you would like to achieve with Delusional Places?
As an artist who feels related to Romanticism, the ultimate goal is unfeasible. The endless search of the sublime through the medium of photography is doomed to fail. Hence, my goal is to put the viewer in a certain state of mind, to provoke a realization of how small we are, and how impossible it is to get a grip of nature which surrounds us all.
What role did your art academy studies play in the making of the series?
My photography bachelor at AKV St. Joost is where my photography journey begun. There I have received the opportunity to experiment with techniques and materials I would probably not come across by myself. A couple of great teachers have pointed out some key moments in my process, and they additionally recommended me literature I still use today.
Do you have any upcoming projects planned at the moment?
I’ll keep working on ‘Waanplekken’, and meanwhile established a new body of work titled ‘Dwaaloevers’’ (‘Wandering Shores’). Again, this new series emanates from the concept of the sublime, but the images are no longer related to landscapes or places.
Furthermore, questions I ask myself at the moment are related to climate change. I’d love to visit places such as those represented in ‘Waanplekken’, but I know I should not travel there because it will damage the environment. So, if I would travel to the mountains, I’d also have to ethically consider whether or not I’d stimulate the climatological destruction of that area even further. It is my hope to help raise awareness about this moral dilemma.