environment

Lightning Storm Flare from the series Experimental Lake

artworks

Guillaume Simoneau

 in 2015. The artwork is a digital pigment print. It explores themes as 

Maldoror #6, 2014

Foam is supported by the VriendenLoterij, Foam Members, De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek, the VandenEnde Foundation and the City of Amsterdam.

In 2021 Foam receives additional support from the Mondriaan Fund and Kickstart Cultuurfonds

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Experimental Lake is set around a world-class research facility looking into human impact on nature. It is situated within the pristine natural environment of the Experimental Lakes Area (ELA) in north-west Ontario, Canada. 58 lakes comprise a natural laboratory where a community of international scientists test the effect of new chemical substances and other human inventions on the environment. Their daily activities are monitored by Simoneau as a complex ecosystem in its own right, much like a scientist studies his specimen. Results from case-studies done in the ELA inform environmental policies worldwide. Similarly, Simoneau’s small observations speak of a universal interconnectedness between man and nature, as increasingly mediated through science – and photography. 

Location lab one, on location ELA, Canada, 2015 from the series Experimental Lake

Location lab one, on location ELA, Canada, 2015

 in 2018. The artwork is a digital pigment print and displayed at 41 x 55 cm. It explores themes as 

Lightning Storm Flare

Mayflies by D. McLeod, on location ELA, Canada from the series Experimental Lake

Mayflies by D. McLeod, on location ELA, Canada

Lake Vyrnwy, Wales D1, 2016 (dyptich)

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Matthew Brandt

 in 2016. The artwork is a c-print soaked in Lake Vyrnwy water and is displayed at 76.2 x 50.8 cm. The artwork makes use of 

Using his surroundings as an additive medium, Brandt’s printed photographs are bathed in a mixture of water collected from the site in which the composition was derived. Through this experimental process, the artist becomes closer to his specific subjects and gains a better understanding of his surroundings as a whole. This controlled technique mirrors the chemical composite of the photographed landscape and therefore symbolises today’s ecological concerns about the deterioration of our natural world.

06.09.2004

Jasper Wiedeman

 in 2004. The artwork is an analogue c-print and is displayed at 61 x 80 cm.

System 8, from the series Kosmos, 2011

is the main business district of Amsterdam, located south of the inner city. Starting in 2001, every year two to four photographers and visual artists received an assignment to capture this area and its rapidly changing environment. The ten works by Jasper Wiedeman that feature in 

 are a documentation of the garden that he created in the middle of the Zuidas.

From the series Monuments

Douglas Mandry

 in 2018. The artwork is an ice photogram digitally printed on glass, and is displayed at 33 x 40 cm.

In an attempt to minimize the devastating effect of global warming on the glaciers of the Swiss Alps, each summer they are covered with geotextile blankets that are designed to keep the ice cool. Douglas Mandry journeyed his native country, intrigued by this desperate attempt to prevent the receding glaciers from further melting. The artist collected disused pieces of geotextile from the mountains, and later processed them as a base for found photographs of early twentieth-century alpinism in the region. Mandry also took bits of broken ice from the glacier with him in a cool box. In the darkroom, he put the ice in the enlarger, where it started to melt and drip onto the photo paper, creating a colourful aura of the glacier. Mandry then reproduced these photograms on glass plates. 

could be considered an index of the vanishing glaciers of Switzerland: frozen time, captured in an instant by the principles of photography.

Monuments, Aletsch #2, 2018

Joris Jansen

 in 2011. Using c-print as the medium, the artwork is displayed at 99 x 129 cm.

 is reminiscent of outer space; it is a familiar picture  of the infinite, of the unknown and total chaos that surrounds us. The photographs in the series 

 by Joris Jansen refuse the reading of the medium of photography as a method to make things visible. His photographs rather make things invisible. Jansen rephotographs the surface of an analogue photograph. By doing so he creates an imaginary universe full of milky ways and swarming planets. This new universe is far removed from the initial photograph and thus only the materiality of the analogue photograph seems to be relevant for the creation of a completely new universe. 

System 8

Kardeşlik from the series Turunç

Kardeşlik from the series Turunç

artworks in the collection

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Solène Gün

 in 2020. Using photography printed on transparent fabric  as the medium, the artwork is displayed at 250 x 203 cm.

Evimde from the series Turunç

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 (Bitter Orange) records the daily lives of young men with a Turkish background in the suburbs of Paris and Berlin. Solène Gün, herself a child of Turkish immigrants and raised in a Parisian suburb, captures the fraternity and strong mutual solidarity that can also go hand in hand with a lack of perspective.

The work is named after an orange commonly found in Turkey. The fruit is a metaphor for the bittersweet existence of a community that is frequently the target of negative stereotyping. Torn between the conflicting urge to hide and the wish to be heard, these men are portrayed faceless. Gün’s focus is on the symbols and gestures through which their identities are expressed, such as a necklace, a prayer rug or the silhouette of a brotherly handshake.

Evimde from the series Turunç

 in 2020. Using photography printed on satin paper as the medium, the artwork is displayed at 110 x 90 cm.

. Through this image, the symbol of fraternity is placed at the forefront in order to escape the stereotypes people may have on suburbs and young from the Turkish community.

Lilac from the series Flamboya

Viviane Sassen

 series. Using C-print on  as the medium, the artwork is displayed at 80 x 65 cm.

Codex from the series Parasomnia, 2010

 shows a young Kenyan man standing in a white shirt with a pink book on his head. He's looking up, but his face is not visible. The photograph is part of the 

 series, which for a large part consists of portraits of young Africans in Zambia, Kenya, and Tanzania. They were often constructed as part of an intuitive collaboration with the subject. Remarkably, it is often impossible to see the subject’s expression: the face and parts of the body tend to be wrapped within a shadow, turning away from the viewer or only display the lower half of the body. This makes it hard to identify with the subject in the photo. The (in)ability to properly register a person’s identity, the limitations preventing the viewer from forming an accurate picture, and the role of photography are recurring themes in Sassen’s work. She plays an intriguing game with perception, undermining our assumptions and stereotypes.

Codex from the series Parasomnia

Untitled, from the series The Afronauts, 2012

Cristina de Middel

Created by Cristina De Middel in 2013. Using inkjet on cotton paper as the medium, the artwork is displayed at 100 x 100 cm. The work explores genres such as the 

The portrait potrays a Zambian man in a space uniform. The work is part of the series 

The starting point for the project The Afronauts is derived from the history of Zambia. A space program started by a school teacher suddenly enlisted Zambia to join the United States and Russia in the space race. The hoped-for outcome was the first African on the moon. However, a lack of financial aid meant that this ambitious initiative was doomed to fail. Fifty years later, De Middel reconstructs this story, using her own imagination.

Untitled from the series Afronauts

Current Study #3, 2013

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Sjoerd Knibbeler

 in 2013. Using inkjet print as the medium, the artwork is displayed at 120 x 96 cm. The work explores genres such as the 

Current Study #3 is an experiment to photograph something that normally cannot be documented visually: air. 

The work of Sjoerd Knibbeler focuses on visualising invisible natural phenomena such as the wind, air movement and climatological conditions. His work could be defined as ‘constructed photography’ – the construction of all sorts of self-imagined and created objects mostly takes place in the studio. There he simulates wind, clouds or a tornado, and he experiments with fragile constructions in a variety of materials such as plastic, paper and fiberboard. Knibbeler explores the paradoxical relation between the still, two-dimensional character of photography and his often transparent, moving, voluminous subjects. He uses photography as a means of visualising his ideas, but everything he photographs is real. Through his artistic practice, he proves the camera to be able to reveal processes that wouldn’t be noticed otherwise.

Current Study #3

Waves from the Web, 2009

Anne de Vries

 in 2009. Using c-print with an epoxy-layer as the medium, the artwork is displayed at 10 x 15 cm.

 is derived from the internet. Inspired by 'The Age of Aquarius,’ the astrological belief that the world has entered a new cycle in which love, light and humanity play an important role, the element of water is often used as a metaphor. De Vries has searched for the different ways that water has been represented in different cultures, from Japanese wood engravings to Bob Ross. De Vries brings the variety of collected images together by making collages and presenting them in a new way.

Waves from the Web

Folder #1 from the series Building Images, 2010

Isabelle Wenzel

 in 2009. Using c-print as the medium, the artwork is displayed at 140 x 110 cm.

Untitled #13, from the series Liquid Portraits, 2009

Untitled #13, from the series You Can't Stop Me Now, 2009

Untitled #13, from the series You Can't Stop Me Now

Untitled #13

 in 2011. Using c-print as the medium, the artwork is displayed at 60 x 50 cm.

Number 1, from the series Color Cocktail, 2011

Number 1

 in 2010. Using c-print on a wooden easel as the medium, the artwork is displayed at 150 x 110 cm.

Paper #1 from the series Building Images, 2010

Paper #1

Folder #1 from the series Building Images

Folder #1

Deborah, from the series Week– End, 2009

Alex Prager

 in 2009. Using c-print as the medium, the artwork is displayed at 60 x 83 cm.

Deborah

From the series Ghost Island

Zooming in: Photography, Performance and the Mythical

Lisandro Suriel

 in 2020/2021. Using c-print as the medium, the artwork is displayed at 120 x 80 cm.

 stems from Suriel's research on forgotten histories in Saint Martin and combines academia and indigenous knowledge to create a new imaginary. 

Sangoma from the series Ghost Island

Sangoma

I would very often come across sensual, young, attractive white models running around being free and having so much fun – the kind of stuff Larry Clark and Ryan McGinley would make. I very seldom saw the same for black people in images – or at least in the photography I knew of then.

Tyler Mitchell

 in 2018. Using inkjet print as the medium, the artwork is displayed at 103 x 127 cm.

Untitled (Two Girls Embrace), 2018

Tyler Mitchell’s work visualises a black utopia. Making use of candy colour palettes and natural light, Mitchell captures young black people in gardens, parks or in front of idyllic studio backdrops where they appear as free, expressive, effortless, sensitive and proud. The utopia that Mitchell creates, makes one realise how highly it contrasts with the way reality is represented. He produces holistic imagery of individuals from his community and brings their humanity to the forefront.

Untitled (Two Girls Embrace), 2018 from the series I Can Make You Feel Good

Untitled (Two Girls Embrace)

 in 2018. Using inkjet print as the medium, the artwork is displayed at 150 x 210 cm.

Boys of Walthamstow, 2018

Boys of Walthamstow, 2018 from the series I Can Make You Feel Good

Boys of Walthamstow

Mariage á Loèche-les-Bains (Marriage in Leukerbad), from the series Ekaterina, 2012-16

Romain Mader’s Ekatarina is notable for the humour and irony with which he addresses serious issues: solitude, love, exploitation and the female body. In this Chinese box of a project, each layer opens to reveal a new interpretive possibility. What is real here, and what is fiction? In the invented Ukrainian town of Ekaterina, mysteriously populated only by women, Mader - or the character he plays - looks for love.

Winner Foam Paul Huf Award 2017

Romain Mader

 in 2012-16. Using inkjet print as the medium, the artwork is displayed at 140 x 100.

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Romain Mader’s Ekatarina is notable for the humour and irony with which he addresses serious issues: solitude, love, exploitation and the female body. In this Chinese box of a project, each layer opens to reveal a new interpretive possibility. What is real here, and what is fiction? 

This selfie depicts Romain Mader with his wife: it’s the end of the artist’s alter ego’s search of a wife. He started his mission in Ukraine, in an imaginary city mysteriously populated only by women, all named Ekaterina, and each hoping to find a rich western husband. In an utterly naïve narration by Romain about his search for the one and only Ekaterina, a series of stereotypes take the stage, from Mader performing as an oblivious western sex tourist, to interchangeable Ukrainian brides, up to the “typical” Soviet backdrop to the whole quest for love. The gap between preconceived ideas about a place like Ukraine and its reality is what is constantly exploited to the point of absurdity in Mader’s work. In a photographic language that perfectly employs the conventions of documentary photography, the confusion between what is fictitious and what is real – or what seems real – ultimately arises as a goal in itself.

Mariage á Loèche-les-Bains (Marriage in Leukerbad) from the series Ekaterina

 in 2012-16. Using inkjet print as the medium, the artwork is displayed at 40 x 50.

Demande en marriage, from the series Ekaterina, 2012-16

This picture depicts Romain Mader with his fiancée: it’s the end of the artist’s alter ego’s search of a wife. He started his mission in Ukraine, in an imaginary city mysteriously populated only by women, all named Ekaterina, and each hoping to find a rich western husband. In an utterly naïve narration by Romain about his search for the one and only Ekaterina, a series of stereotypes take the stage, from Mader performing as an oblivious western sex tourist, to interchangeable Ukrainian brides, up to the “typical” Soviet backdrop to the whole quest for love. The gap between preconceived ideas about a place like Ukraine and its reality is what is constantly exploited to the point of absurdity in Mader’s work. In a photographic language that perfectly employs the conventions of documentary photography, the confusion between what is fictitious and what is real – or what seems real – ultimately arises as a goal in itself.

Demande en marriage from the series Ekaterina

Detail day 8 from All year round

Detail day 8 from the All year round project

Ola Lanko

 in 2013. Using duratrans print in light box as the medium, the artwork is displayed at 100 x 55 x 5 cm.

22.12.2013, from the series All Year Round, 2013

In 2013, the camera of Ola Lanko took 2,000 automated pictures of the IJ every day from the window of her apartment. These pictures were organised in chronological order, creating panoramic ribbons of the passage of time. The start and end of the day mark the frame of the image, producing what looks from a distance like strips of tone and colour that vary depending on the time of day. Close up, however, the details of what has passed before the camera become apparent. The works 22.06.2013 and 22.12.2013 from the overall project All Year Around include all photographs that Ola Lanko took on 22 June and 22 December 2013 - the longest and shortest day of the year.

22.06.2013, from the series All Year Round, 2013

22.12.2013

22.06.2013

Baron, 2013

Ask Our Curators - Untitled by Harley Weir

Harley Weir

 in 2016. Using C-print as the medium, the artwork is displayed at 100 x 80 cm.

Untitled, 2016

This photograph comes from a shoot that Harley Weir did for the 'Female Gaze Issue' from i-D Magazine (August 2016). For the first time in the history of the famous youth culture magazine, it devoted an entire number to women seen through the lens of only female photographers. How do women look at women? It is a theme that Harley Weir has been involved in for some time. While working in the context of the fashion industry, her photographs show a different approach to women - one that does not necessarily meet the standard beauty ideal. For example, she refuses to brush away something like pigmentation marks on the body of a model in her photos. Time and again she seeks out the tension between the erotic and functional meaning of the erogenous zones of the female body.

Untitled Harley Weir

White Charcoal, 2016

Sofia Borges

 in 2016. Using burned inkjet print as the medium, the artwork is displayed at 150 x 220 cm.

Borges experimented with the destructive power of fire in relation to imagery. She burned the photographic surface of a large-format print, a way of exploring what happens to the meaning of an image when it is burned. Does the piece lose its signification by being damaged or does it acquire a different sense?

Borges portrays objects and artefacts to free them from their specific meaning, to let them stand by themselves. She strives to show us that even photography, a medium bound up with reality by definition, can let go of reality, as happens in a painting or sculpture. In her work, she investigates what representation is, and what a photograph can be. Myths, fabulous creatures and philosophical questions about representation, mimicry and imitation play a major part in her work.

White Charcoal

Foam: 3h Bruno Zhu - New Arrivals, 2015

Bruno Zhu

, Bruno Zhu transformed the Foam 3h space, which is also a library, into another reading room – albeit a two-dimensional one.

 He filled the area with photographs of carpets, bookshelves, lamps, and phonebooks. As no actual reading could be done, Zhu rendered the room into a symbolic space that referenced the idea of reading.

Zhu light-heartedly explores his fascination for photography’s ambivalent nature as a symbol and an object in and of itself. One might be tempted to qualify Zhu’s work as post-digital, because of the influence of the technology and the Internet, but the artist insists not to be tied to one style. “Things are getting more awkward, more humorous, more visceral and more urgent, so why rely on a label to box all these things up?” His peculiar work invites the viewer into a world of brightness and positivity.

New Arrivals

Aike, 2016

Olya Oleinic

During summer 2016, visual artist Olya Oleinic went on a journey through China, motivated by her fascination for the aesthetics of advertising and the fact that China is one of the countries producing most of the objects we use in our daily lives, all around the world. 

From Beijing, Shanghai, and Taipei to Hong Kong, she focused on the consumer culture she encountered on every corner of the cities’ streets.

Back in her Amsterdam studio, she started recreating her impressions and sentiments about this confusing contact with China’s consumerism and produced another reality of this phenomenon. Playing with the stereotypes of mass consumption, famous Western labels, and dozens of counterfeit brands such as Aike, Nkie or Calvim Klain, Oleinic constructed a deformed yet meaningful visual impression of consumer culture.

Aike

Sweet Crazies #19, 2011

Jan Hoek

Jan Hoek is a visual artist whose work often reveals a special yet ambiguous relationship between the photographer and his models.

Jan Hoek is a visual artist whose work often reveals a special yet ambiguous relationship between the photographer and his models. His series document his encounters with people, exposing simultaneously the weird, funny, painful, or touching stories that arose in this context. This portrait is taken from the series 

: a colloquial name given to Ethiopia’s homeless who suffer mental illnesses. Hoek was initially attracted to their curious and flamboyant fashion style, which reminded him of kings or emperors. The photoshoot created space to acknowledge and play with the royal feeling exuding from these remarkable individuals.

Adopting a unique approach to his work, Hoek always leaves room for the unexpected, as well as for the unwanted. He crosses traditional boundaries and challenges viewers, introducing us to the unconventional characters that became his models.

Sweet Crazies #19

Studio Universe 1 (Diptych), from the series Light of Other Days, 2011

Taiyo Onorato & Nico Krebs

Employing a technique that combines photography with installation art, Onorato & Krebs maintain a balance in their photographs on the edges of reality and fiction, without using any image editing software. 

Studio Universe 2 (Diptych), from the series Light of Other Days, 2011

more from the series

Their process of altering the visual product before instead of after the image is captured opens a new world of meanings and possibilities. In 

 the illusion of a fictional galaxy takes us far beyond the confines of the studio.

Studio Universe 2 (Diptych) from the series 

Studio Universe 2 (Diptych)

Studio Universe 1 (Diptych) from the series 

Studio Universe 1 (Diptych)

Paper Girl 2, from the series World, 2010

Ina Jang

 in 2010. Using c-print as the medium, the artwork is displayed at 60 x 40 cm.

A frail and twisted female body dissimulated behind pieces of paper: profoundly influenced by fashion and design, Ina Jang’s images are unconventional and light. She creates a complex and multidimensional world in which reality and fiction are intertwined using different surfaces and layers.

The base of Jang’s work is her experimental curiosity. Many of her images start with drawings or figures, which become obscured in surreal, hyper-stimulated environments. Jang’s goal is to find new perspectives in photography: "Coming up with something that completely breaks the boundaries might be impossible, but I think it’s always nice to try to break personal boundaries." With her conceptually and aesthetically playful approach to photography, Jang crafts her own visual language and creates light-hearted and poetic work.

Paper Girl 2

Pink Ladies and Pear, 2012

Daniel Gordon

 in 2012. Using C-type as the medium, the artwork is displayed at 73,3 x 93,4 cm.

Daniel Gordon’s work displays a kaleidoscope of colours, forms, and textures. Gordon uses his own photographs alongside images that he finds on Internet to construct three-dimensional still lifes. Although familiar with Photoshop, he mostly physically cuts and pastes in the studio. Daniel Gordon does not hide the construction behind his work but rather emphasizes it. The paper structure of the fruit is distinctly visible. A drop of glue remains visible on the rim of the fruit bowl, a silent witness of his creative practice.

Pink Ladies and Pears

Jean-Vincent Simonet

 in 2014. Using inkjet print as the main medium, the artwork is displayed at 120 x 90 cm.

When Jean-Vincent Simonet came across the book 

 (The Songs of Maldoror), he felt hugely attracted to the dark, theatrical and transgressive character. The cutting-edge book praising youth revolt, blasphemy and the victory of dream over reality was published in 1869 by Comte de Lautréamont. Simonet decided to revive the literary enigma. His photographs are based on the atmosphere it evokes: gothic angels provided with dramatic blue photoshopped skies full of stars and dead branches merged into pink and blue shapes that look like hairs. The eclectic style inspired him to shift between analogue and digital, using digital techniques to glitch and merge photographs. This enables the mysterious atmosphere of the book to become tangible in the pictures. That the book was once banned because of its blasphemous character, comes as no surprise.

Maldoror #6

w Face, 23 March, Tokyo, Japan, 2015

Nerhol

Created by Nerhol (Yoshihisa Tanaka & Ryuta Iida) in 2015. Using stacked inkjet print as the medium, the artwork is a sculpture displayed at 23 x 20 x 4,5 cm.

Nerhol (Yoshihisa Tanaka & Ryuta Iida), 2015

Nerhol is a collaboration between graphic designer Yoshihisa Tanaka and sculptor Ryuta Iida since 2007. Together they explore the concept of the photographic image. Traditionally, a photograph presents a depiction of a person’s three-dimensional face on a flat plane. The work 

, however, is a time-lapse portrait consisting of numerous photographs taken over a three-minute period, a process which captures each and every small, involuntary movement of the subject. Subsequently, Nerhol meticulously scoops out and carves the faces in their photographs, combining a layering of the multiple images with reductive carving. By merging many images into a single picture, the artists unveil the small, ever-present alterations within a photograph. In an ingenious way, the duo questions the genre of photographic portraiture and photography as a snapshot of 'reality': every single, minimal movement can already produce a different representation of the sitter.

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