Winner DuPho. SO Award 2025
VACANCY (noun): *a space or place that is available to be used *place, location, site, town, space, vacancy *idleness, vacuity, inactivity, vacancy *an empty area or space *being unoccupied
As a human and photographer, I am fascinated by the complex relationship between humans and their (built) environment. How we relate to nature, cities, our homes, workplaces, but also holiday resorts and tourist destinations. How we influence these environments and vice versa.
VACANCY is an ongoing, multi-year project in which I capture the emptiness and silence of hotels, resorts and tourist destinations during the holiday season. Moments and places where temporary humans are absent, but their presence remains latently visible. Places where we briefly ‘escape’, but which themselves reveal something of our way of life.
Images of an interim that seem as if these places are frozen in a moment. There is temporary emptiness and silence. There is a delay, an in-between phase, waiting for the next scene or movement. I therefore photograph only at dawn or dusk, also moments of transition.
I see this series as a metaphor for the transitional periods in our lives, in which one phase of life ends, but the next is yet to begin.
The title refers to the ‘No/Vacancy’ signs at motels and also sounds like the Dutch ‘holiday’.
From the jury report
‘That this series was photographed in the high season is telling and impressive. It highlights people’s habits. Everyone goes out and back in at the same time. The dusk makes the images consistent and the atmosphere recognisable, while also leaving a surreal feel. He shows the built environment, without judgement, with an aesthetic eye. The series has something unnatural, but remains refined and soft, with a subtle tension that stays with you.’
DuPho. SO’25
This 10th edition of Selection of Dutch Photography counts 15 winners; the entire selection of SO’25 represents one winning entity.
These are the photographers who receive the title of Selection of Dutch Photography ‘25: Fidelio Faustino Ferrier, Olivier Tuinier, Lotte Ekkel, Rob Hornstra, Bonnita Postma, Prins de Vos, Femke Reijerman, Eelco Wortman, Ronald Tilleman, Tengbeh Kamara, Erik van Cuyk and students Klaas, Olivia Tudor, Anna-Raven Bloten and Eliza-Sophie Sekrève.
SO’25 expo
The work of the selection will be on display during the SO’25 expo at Melkweg Expo from 9 to 11 May and can also be seen on bus shelters around Amsterdam’s Leidseplein.
