is an ongoing visual research into the perception of migration within the Schengen Area and the assumptions and biases that play a role in how people who migrate are perceived.

The project portrays a range of places and situations along migration routes through Europe, and the people who find themselves there. Rather than focusing solely on those labelled as migrants or refugees, it encompasses a wide range of people and environments.

Images of different people, places and situations are deliberately placed alongside one another to explore possible connections and similarities and to question familiar categories. The work examines what can be inferred from someone’s appearance, behaviour or surroundings, and the role that existing imagery, narratives and terminology play in our perception. Words such as migrant, refugee, newcomer, expat or local are not neutral, but evoke ideas about origin, privilege, belonging and freedom of movement.

At the same time, the work places individual experiences within a broader European reality. Small gestures, chance encounters and seemingly banal details become part of a larger visual whole that also searches for what we have in common: the need for food, sleep, safety, affection, dignity and freedom of movement.

The title Alle Menschen (werden Brüder) refers to Friedrich Schiller’s words “Alle Menschen werden Brüder” from Ode to Joy, used in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Its melody became the anthem of Europe. The work examines the tension between the idea of a Europe built on freedom and connection and the borders, distinctions and inequalities that determine who is able to move freely and who is not.

is an ongoing project consisting of a series of photographs, quotes and drawings that emerged from the daily life of a mother and her son. The project started in March 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic suddenly reduced their world to themselves, their home and the streets surrounding it. For the first time, the camera was turned towards their own lives, making them both participants and subjects of the work.

The images emerge from observations and visual discoveries in everyday life. Together with the son’s spontaneous remarks and drawings, they form an intimate and at times surreal microcosm in which closeness and distance, dependence and autonomy, tenderness and unease come together. As the project continues, the child at its centre gradually grows into an adolescent, changing not only the relationship between mother and son, but also the way their shared life is observed.

I’m hungry is by far the son’s most repeated phrase. Within the work, hunger moves beyond its literal meaning. It touches on care and dependence within the parent-child relationship, but also on a broader longing for closeness and connection.

In April 2012, the body of a man was found by the side of a road, approximately forty kilometres outside St Petersburg. He had died a violent death. Next to his body were his passport, a small amount of money, his gold wedding ring and his watch. The man was a Belgian citizen who had been reported missing by his family three weeks earlier.

That man was my father.

Five years later, I retraced the journey he had made, day by day and hour by hour. I travelled from Düsseldorf via Frankfurt to St Petersburg, and then on to the place where he was found. Along the way, I photographed everything and nothing, without knowing exactly what I was looking for.

The images follow the journey: motorways, airports, waiting areas and other places of transit. They are everyday records of places where people arrive, depart, wait or pass through. Little seems to happen. Together, they follow in the footsteps of my father’s final journey.

is a photographic research project into boys between the ages of fourteen and eighteen, as they transition from childhood to adulthood. The project stems from a fascination with this long-overlooked group and with a stage of life in which identity, friendship, group dynamics, freedom and responsibility are constantly in motion.

By following these boys over an extended period, the project explores their relationships with one another and how these dynamics shift between the individual and the group. They are searching for who they are, who they want to be, or who they think they should be, within a world in which the need to belong, social codes and online culture are constantly present. They challenge and stand up for one another, are physically close and emotionally distant, tough as a group and gentle as individuals. Play, boredom, bravado and vulnerability exist alongside first crushes, alcohol, work and the taste of newfound freedoms.

Against the backdrop of this development, the world in which they are growing up is also changing. Climate change will shape the future they are heading toward. BOYS explores how these two developments relate to one another: boys growing into adulthood and searching for their place, and a world that is simultaneously undergoing profound change.

Brussels residents in the aftermath of the terrorist attack in March 22, 2016.

Series of portraits, commissioned by NRC Handelsblad.

With a cumulation of unfavourable climatological and geographical factors that annually causes three quarters of the country to overflow, Bangladesh is one of the least liveable areas.

Furthermore, the food deficit and a lack of hygiene, health care and decent education make for a dead-end future, while the country is faced with a rising population density and an increasing lack of provisions.

In a patriarchal society under an extreme Muslim fundamentalists dominance, women are pushed into a subservient position, denying them any form of education, personal development or freedom of speech.

Girls often face assault and sexual violence within their own family, sometimes at an extremely young age. Due to a lack of education and means, they frequently end up in the streets or in prostitution or are married off at a very early age.

Many young girls work as domestic helpers in richer households, where rape and mutilation by the man of the house is part of the daily routine.

For disabled children, especially girls, the living conditions are even harder. Because of the shame and the stigma that they carry, most of them are abandoned or even killed by their own family. Deprived of any possible social or educational contact, they are condemned to a life in the streets and the sewers of the bigger cities.

Moreover, these children are often recruited to beg and are mutilated or blinded with sulphuric or nitric acid, in order to make more money.

Each year, the Baptist Mission Integrated School (BMIS) offers shelter and education to about 80 blind or visually impaired girls between the age of 5 and 18, making the school unique in Bangladesh.

Regardless of background or religion, these girls are given a chance to develop within a protected community. Every day they are educated a few hours in Braille, while the rest of the day is filled with tasks such as cooking, cleaning and washing.

Despite the excellent work of the institute, there is an undeniable atmosphere of boredom and loneliness. The girls often aimlessly walk around in circles back and forth or sit shaking quietly in a corner. They seem to wait for something to break the rut. For something to take them out of the darkness.

Selection of portraits made for NRC Handelsblad, De Tijd, De Morgen and Vrij Nederland.

Selection of portraits made for NRC Handelsblad, The New York Times, Middelheim Museum, Triggerfinger, Meuris and Noordkaap.

In a world where concrete has displaced nature, large buildings rise above the horizon.

When building was stopped abruptly, an eternal construction site is created. Although declared uninhabited, human beings will remain to engage in these structures.

That's when GTI's (Grands Travaux Inutiles) prove their utility elsewhere.