Personal data

surname Worms
first names Wilhelmus Thomas Adrianus Gerardus
familiar name Witho

private adress Verzetslaan 13
1318 BP Almere
tel / fax 036 5373650
e mail: <verzet13@xs4all.nl>

Witho Worms was born in 1959 in Amersfoort, Holland.
He studied anthropology in Amsterdam at the Free University.
He specialized himself in the field of visual communication.
In 1988 he continued his studies at the art school in Utecht.

Here he found out that photography had his main interest.
In 1990 he started his career as a professional commercial photographer.
His main subjects can be found in the field of human interest.
From 1992 he showed his non-commercial work in several solo exhibitions and group expositions.
His main interest now is to master some of the alt techniques like platinum and carbon and to find out what meaning these photographic techniques can have for the time that we live in.

Statement

I became interested in photography and film during a study of cultural anthropology in Amsterdam. In 1988 I wrote my thesis about the french filmmaker Jean Rouch. He was the first anthropological filmmaker that gave the people under study a decisive role in the making of his films. After that I went two years to art school which led to a career as a professional commercial photographer.

In 1997 I ordered my first platinum kit from Bostick and Sullivan. It took me a year to give it a first try but after that I was overwhelmed by its potential beauty. This technique gave me a new perspective for my non-commercial work.

In 1999 I was offered to do an exhibition in Nagele (NL). Nagele is a very small village in Holland, built in the 'polder' (land that
was gained from the sea). The village plan was made by a group of eight architects just after the second world war. They made a revolutionary plan that took them almost 10 years to accomplish.

The first houses were occupied in 1955. The inhabitants came from all over Holland: from the south, came people who had to flee from the water, from the area nearby Rotterdam were expansion of the harbour forced the farmers away and from the north were the sons of farmers could not find land anymore.

Inside the village there lived 750 people, most of them employed at the farms surrounding Nagele. Today there are not many people anymore who work on the farms. Village life has altered therefore. People moved in and people moved out.

A new neighbourhood has been built at the edge of the village. The village has a large central space in which the churches, schools and other public buildings are located. Around this central space are eight neighbourhoods, all square with a large open space in the center. From each house there is a view to the central space with the public buildings, except from the houses located in the new one.

All the houses are square with flatroofs (not very common in Holland for those days). Most of them are build in a row, only a few are separate. A large row of trees seperates the village from the surrounding flat countryside. From the air Nagele looks like an oasis in the Dutch clay.

My working title became 'In contact with Nagele'. I decided to make panoramic sequences of the central space and the 8 neighbourhoods. Also I planned to do portraits of some of the inhabitants. The panorama's were made on roll film by making ten shots covering a complete circle of 360°.

may 1999 - Nagele

For the different shots I used lenses with different focal length. The different shots were mounted together in one print leaving half a centimeter between each photo stressing the architectural rythm in the village.

The portraits were made in various neighbourhoods, in front of the peoples houses with a 13 x 18cm camera. The portraits are accompanied with some sociological data. I wrote down the names of the people, their adress, when and were they were born and how long they lived in Nagele.

After two months I presented in Nagele 9 panorama's and 20 portraits. At the opening there were more than 100 people from witch the majority came from Nagele. It hung in the former Catholic church witch is now a museum on the history of Nagele.

This year I applied and have been accepted for an 'artist in residence' at the same place. My aim this time will be to make larger portraits of some of the inhabitants and to hear their stories about their life. During the months of june and july 2000 I will set up a temporary studio in Nagele to accomplish this project.

At Atelier PH7 I present the 9 panorama's and a few of the portraits. I am very happy to show it here.

This project was the first in which I felt a nice balance between photo-technique and the content I wished to convey. I felt that I could bring the medium and the message a little bit more together in my mind.

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