De Morgen, 2006-2007

In February 2006, I initiated two independent daily rituals. Firstly, wherever I am living or traveling, I purchase the local newspaper. In Antwerp, where I was living at the time, this was De Morgen (which literally translates as “the morning”), which lends the work its title. Secondly, before looking at the newspaper cover, I write a diary entry recording my personal experiences and actions from that day.

I then pair each entry with the primary photograph from that day's front page. The source image remains completely unedited—preserving all original text, headlines, and graphic overlays—scaled to fill the full screen of a television monitor.

De Morgen 24.02.2006 – 23.02.2007 chronicles a year of my daily existence, continuing my ongoing investigation into how photography interacts with text, personal memory, narrative, and time.

This was presented both as a video as well as twelve artist books – a book for each month of the year during which I did this work.

(Note: The current video installation presents selected excerpts from February, May, and October 2006, representing a section of the complete work.)

Cape Town, 2007