It was an emergency jump that made photographer Bram Tackenberg (47) photograph people in their living room for eight years now. He had to leave his photo studio, forcing him to look for other income. He made an appeal: who wants to be photographed at home? This resulted in an unexpected number of reactions. For a while he traveled by bicycle from address to address in his hometown of Gouda. ‘Then I thought: this is much more fun than working in a studio.’
Tackenberg’s living room portraits have since grown into an art project that is also used in society. On Sunday, an exhibition will be opened in the library of Heerlerheide, a deprived area in Heerlen, South Limburg, with the 33 portraits he made there. The Living Rooms of Heerlerheide, as the series is called, can also be seen in the neighbourhood: on specially designed banners. In addition, a magazine has been placed in all 8,500 letterboxes in which the photos are printed, as well as short interviews with eleven of the people portrayed.
The idea behind the project is that the residents of Heerlerheide will appreciate their neighborhood more and start talking to each other. ‘It is good that people dare to throw open the shutters’, says Tackenberg. ‘That promotes participation in the neighbourhood.’
Heerlerheide could use some social cohesion: the district is located in Heerlen-Noord, which became seriously impoverished after the mines were closed. Of the 56 thousand people who now live there, the majority have a low income. The district has been designated by the national government as one of the sixteen ‘urban renewal areas’ in the Netherlands in which additional investments are made. Numerous organizations are now working together in the ‘Alliantie Heerlen-Noord’ to do something about the poor quality of life.
Art can also help with this, is now a conviction. The costs of Tackenberg’s project in Heerlerheide are borne by no fewer than eight parties, including the municipality of Heerlen, two housing associations, the theater festival Cultura Nova and the entrepreneurs’ association in the district.
The photographer has long experience with these kinds of initiatives. As an ‘autonomous art project’ he had started to capture people in their living rooms throughout the Netherlands. Due to a commission from Museum Gouda, he concentrated on his hometown again: he made living room portraits in a former problem neighbourhood, which he exhibited in 2019 in the museum and a community center.
He then moved to Korte Akkeren, a working-class neighborhood in the west of Gouda. He got ten lenders together thanks to a foundation that carries out social work there. With the collected resources, Tackenberg made a newspaper in three versions, in which his living room photos were combined with short bios of a number of those portrayed. One version was delivered to all residents of Korte Akkeren, but the photos and stories in it didn’t quite match – they had to ring the doorbell of neighbors to get everything complete with the other two versions.
Later, the photographer was allowed to hang large signs with his portraits on facades in Korte Akkeren for three months. The photos have still not been removed a year and a half later, he proudly reports. ‘The Antilleans, who often drink a beer in the street, have become my attendants. Exhibiting in the open air is really cool.’
Tackenberg was nominated for an award and received a lot of media attention. This led to the new project in Heerlerheide, where he was born (when he was 4 his family moved to a neighboring district). He shot the 33 portraits during corona time. “It was almost absurd to get into someone’s living room.”
He finds candidates for his photos by going to places where many people gather: the library, neighborhood parties, the care center. ‘I also helped give language lessons in Heerlerheide. Sometimes I just ring the doorbells of houses.’ His approach produced a range of people: from a blended family with seven children in a renovated house to single people who temporarily live with the Salvation Army.
The photographer always captures the people portrayed, who all receive a printout of their photo, in ‘the same stately and proud way’, he writes in the foreword to his magazine. ‘As a result, differences disappear’, he explains. ‘This project was set up to create a sense of community. I’m quite ideological.’ He also has another motivation: he wants to get away from the current polarization in society.
He has since been awarded the contract to make 250 living room portraits throughout Gouda this year, because of the celebration that the city received city rights 750 years ago. Financing is almost done. He claims to earn little from his projects. ‘I work with super small budgets.’ To make ends meet, he also makes animation films and shoots commissioned photos.
The stories he hears in the living rooms often do not make him happy. There is a lot of suffering in the neighborhoods in which he has worked. Nevertheless, he says he enjoys the projects – he also sees a lot of resilience.
He now envisions a living room series throughout the Netherlands. He would now like to point his camera at a wealthy neighborhood. It’s not all gold that glitters there, he suspects. “I think there’s a lot less community there.”
The living rooms of Heerlerheide, Cultural Center Gen Coel in Heerlen, until 18/3.
neighborhood pictures
Because extra government money is going to sixteen deprived neighborhoods in the Netherlands, there are often more resources to use culture to achieve more cohesion. The Rotterdam artist Maarten Bel came up with an original idea last year. He designed pictures with pictures of a number of inhabitants of Schiedam-Oost. Because these can be saved, just like the famous football pictures, the intention is that local residents get to know each other better.