VEL
Nominee DuPho. SO Award 2024
Where do I end and does the other begin? In VEL (i.e. Dutch for skin), I move between autonomy and surrender, somewhere there between you and me. I seek to connect without losing something – not knowing if it was ever mine in the first place. This is my queer take on what I long for most: close to you, true to me.
The only god left for me is change – for what prayer reaches deeper than shedding an old skin to underneath find yourself afresh. Over and over again. What better way to soak it off than, slowly, in the room that exists only when you and me turn into us?
Always I make about it, only now I see it: what remains changes. My name is Rox Klijn (they/them). And with my camera I ask questions I never dared to ask out loud. To others and perhaps even more to myself. About being yourself without a mask. About body, gender and sexuality. About living and surviving. And all the while, whether I want to or not, about change.
More about the Dutch Photography Award: dupho.nl