the neighbour, his ex & the owner of the laundrette
The neighbour, his ex and the owner of the laundrette is Maarten Tromp’s first photo book (2008) with a photographic essay about a notorious Amsterdam neighbourhood and its residents.
With these photos I reflect on the current, often biased information and representation of images as in the media. A neighbourhood built out of moments, places and encounters. We look and think in subconscious patterns and prejudices cloud our perception, passing what we already know - or do we?
Read more about this book.
Photographic technique: 135 and 6x7 film, C-print
'An unbearable situation escalates with death', screams a headline in de Volkskrant one morning in september 2006.
‘Growing unrest in the Indische Buurt in Amsterdam after a deadly knifing. According to the residents, the neighbourhood is controlled by scum fighting over drug dealing territories’. Printed media and TV, pouring superlatives, have ethnic groups pitched against each other while competing gangs are terrorising the community.
From my window, I walk to the television, and back. I ask myself if I am looking at the same neighbourhood that they are talking about.
