Sleutelen as a Photographic Gesture

A performative lecture that reflects on the artistic search for an alternative to photography as hunting. The lecture traces how the dutch verb sleutelen, a specific type of tinkering, emerged as a way of understanding the photographic gesture. The presentation itself unfolds as a form of sleutelen, shifting attention from the finished image to the social situation in which a portrait is made.

Sleutelen as a Photographic Gesture is based on the doctoral research project The Situated Portrait. It has been presented as an essay-film at Est-Art, Leiden, and as a performative lecture at ICPT 2024 in Cyprus and the Art of Research Conference in Helsinki. An article based on this presentation was published in the peer-reviewed magazine Research in Arts & Education, Vol. 2024.