Acts of Proximity, 2026 Photocollages 10 x 15 cm Pho
Acts of Proximity carries a double meaning. "Acts" refers both to actions and to performative acts, linking this photographic series to my earlier body of work, Civil Defence, Acts I–V. "Proximity" promises neither reconciliation nor agreement. It simply describes the act of coming close enough for an encounter to become possible. It is a modest gesture, yet perhaps one of the most important tasks of art.
The series has been shaped by the thinking of artists and writers such as Alan Watson and Ursula Biemann, whose work points towards the need for new forms of listening in a time marked by ecological and societal crises. Rather than proposing political solutions, they explore attention, presence and relationality as artistic methods. This perspective has become increasingly important to my own practice.
Through my ongoing project National Identity, I have become interested in how the very idea of the nation inevitably produces a distinction between "us" and "them." Acts of Proximity emerged from a desire to investigate this boundary through artistic practice. Not through debate or representation, but through a simple act: inhabiting the same landscape.
The series does not seek to erase difference. Instead, it asks what happens when difference is no longer the starting point of an encounter. These works are not about tolerance, nor are they about identity politics. They are about an artistic method. The photographs document a practice in which I attempt to remain close to what might otherwise be reduced to a symbol, allowing a person to remain irreducible rather than becoming a category.
My exploration of national identity is therefore also an exploration of relationship, vulnerability and coexistence. Proximity and distance are not primarily geographical or cultural conditions, but relational ones. What happens when two people share the same landscape? Can small gestures of attention and shared presence open new ways of imagining community? Acts of Proximity extends National Identity by shifting the focus from the question of who we are to how we choose to be together.
