Introduction

The Steenbergen Stipendium 2017 has been awarded to Eline Benjaminsen (Norway, 1992) from the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague. With her photographic graduation project "Where the money is made," Benjaminsen demonstrates that the financial market has severed all connections with the earth.

According to the jury, comprised of Caroline von Courten (jury chair, PhD candidate in photo theory, Leiden University), Jaap Scheeren (photographer and honorable mention of the Steenbergen Stipendium), and Merel Bem (art critic and writer), Benjaminsen has created an impressive museum-worthy piece with her project. In the jury report, they state: "In a very professional manner, she has managed to capture a pressing, engaging, and intangible subject in her work. The film with an excellent soundscape stands out head and shoulders above the rest. The viewer is literally drawn into it. Her voice-over creates a proximity that makes the abstraction of the largely unknown subject disappear."

Eline Benjaminsen

Where the money is made
"If I say stock exchange, which image do you see?" Eline Benjaminsen repeatedly asks the viewer. Meanwhile, the German landscape gradually passes by from a bird's-eye view. This cinematic flight is regularly interrupted by colourful graphs showing the peaks and valleys of the financial market, or by brief portraits of places in Northern Europe, including London, Frankfurt, and Calais, where the so-called High Frequency Trading takes place.

With the film, Benjaminsen shows that the financial market has left behind any connection with the earth. The tall transmission towers that determine the 'frequency' are the only physical elements that still point to this parallel reality high in the sky. Benjaminsen makes this elusive subject both photographic and cinematic, finding a form that prompts us to reflect.

Tim Cullmann (Rietveld)

Tulip – All2gether Sommer Kombi
The starting point for this work by Tim Cullmann is a visual study into the privately owned garden and the creative craftsmanship expressed to create it. He does this in a very idiosyncratic way by using the camera to understand the garden as a physical place while also creating an abstract photographic work. Patterns of a red and white checked tablecloth with a cherry pie on it, for example, melt into a harmonious overall structure. The graphic qualities of the garden’s paving suddenly are the main focus. He presents these images again as a paving pattern on a wooden construction frame.

In doing so, Cullmann questions the ownership (in the sense of appropriation) of images that naturally lurk behind the making of photographs. Do we have images in our heads before we create them? To what degree do they influence what we create? Or do they just provide a framework? An exciting experiment with images that creates a new way of looking at them.

Niké Dolman (Willem de Kooning)

Welcoming, Recognizing, Also recognizing, Acknowledging, Also acknowledging, Emphasizing, Also emphasizing, Stressing, Recognizing, Emphasizing, Acknowledging, Agreeing
After reading the Paris Climate Agreement (a 20-page document), Niké Dolman remained particularly struck by its poetic tone. She felt that this tone was entirely at odds with the premise that specific goals and obligations were being imposed on the countries agreeing to this agreement. The more abstract than specific wording (to which the title of the document specifically refers) inspired Dolman to create a free photographic translation of the agreement. In this project, she presents herself as an excellent image-maker who can even capture clichés on camera in such a way that the viewer is tempted to think about what the aim of this climate agreement really is.

Felicity van Oort (HKU)

Either not dead or does not exist
On Wednesday, 12 September 2001, Antonio Arturo Hernandez’s mother did not get a phone call from New York. This young man usually called his mother in Mexico every Wednesday. He had probably been working the day before in the World Trade Center and was one of the many illegal immigrants who had died when the towers collapsed. In a widescreen slideshow, Felicity van Oort sketches a picture of the life of Antonio as based on historic family photos, still lifes and cityscapes of New York while his mother talks about him. Van Oort constructed this fictitious portrait so that the fate of one person and his family could symbolise the larger group of illegal immigrants who were never recognised officially as victims. Her slideshow begins with a long line up of facts about the unknown victims of 9/11; the viewer is immediately struck by Van Oort’s thorough research into this subject. The result is an honest portrait of this burning issue along with the emotional impact it deserves.

Kevin Osepa (HKU)

Mester blousé,
Kevin Osepa was born on a small island in the Dutch Antilles where magic, superstition and spirituality were part of the culture. Upon his arrival in the pragmatic Netherlands, it was as if all these elements belonged to the past. In his photography, Osepa searches for a merging of these two cultures by ‘re-enchanting’ the drabness of the Netherlands: adding colourful, aromatic interventions and other magic elements to the picture.

His personal quest for identity and environment is so whimsical and free that underlying matters also emerge: a colourful Netherlands, the presence and absence of para-realities in this country, and the impact that colonialism has on current generations.