The Europeans - a project by Rob Hornstra and Arnold van Bruggen

Image courtesy of Rob Hornstra and Arnold van Bruggen - The Europeans

Creative Black Country and Multistory are delighted to be welcoming photographer Rob Hornstra and writer/ filmmaker Arnold van Bruggen to the Black Country to collaborate on our first project in Dudley.

Rob and Arnold, who are both based in the Netherlands, have been working on a project called The Europeans, which they describe as ‘a portrait of modern Europe’.

Traveling from region to region and from theme to theme in this multi-year project (which spans a decade 2019 - 2029), their aim is to create a 21st century time piece on the European Heartland. Hornstra and van Bruggen see Europe on the eve of drastic change. Populism and authoritarianism are on the rise, where ghosts from the past seem to return.

For chapter 2 they turn to the The Black Country. Having visited Dudley in 2019 they return this month (January 2020) to spend 10 days meeting with groups and individuals, going out for food, joining people on their daily work routines and involving themselves in community life.

”As you walk through the main street, the castle slowly disappears. A stretched landscape in front of you: residential districts, flats, industrial buildings, and chimneys. This is the Black Country. Its history is majestic and proud. This is where the steam engine was used for the first time, and where the foundations for the industrial era were established. Socialism, social democracy and climate change - this town was at the cradle of it. What remains?

Chapter Two: The Black Country is the second chapter that Hornstra and van Bruggen produce within their new long-term project The Europeans. In the same period they are working on Chapter One: The Former Capital in Lithuania. In the coming years at least twenty heartland regions in Europe will be investigated. The work made in Dudley and its surroundings will function as a stand-alone project in a publication and exhibition about The Black Country and its citizen, but will continue to travel for years as part of the overall project The Europeans.

In Dudley, Hornstra and van Bruggen will focus on the Black Country as the cradle of industrialisation, and everything that follows from that. Work, religion, sports, hobbies and leisure activities are backgrounds in which individuals are being portrayed and interviewed. Through their systematic approach, they penetrate into the roots of a local population and go beyond the superficial facade of everyday life. It is not only during the production phase that they enter into a dialogue with ordinary people, they also actively seek dialogue during the presentation of their work. What do locals think of the image that these two outsiders have created of the place they call home?”

An exhibition and publication will be presented later in the year and displayed in the Black Country.

Rob Hornstra (b. 1975, NL) is a photographer of predominantly long-term documentary projects, both at home and around the world. He has published several books of solo work, produced documentary series for a variety of international magazines, and taken part in numerous solo and group exhibitions in the Netherlands and abroad. In 2009, Hornstra and writer/filmmaker Arnold van Bruggen started The Sochi Project, culminating in the retrospective book An Atlas of War and Tourism in the Caucasus and an exhibition that toured Europe, America, India and Canada. He is the founder and former artistic director of FOTODOK – Space for Documentary Photography. Four times per year he runs a popular live talk show about photobooks in his hometown Utrecht. He is head of the photography department at the Royal Academy of Arts in The Hague.

Arnold van Bruggen (b. 1979, NL) is a writer and filmmaker fascinated by how the bigger movements and stories in history affect everyday life. From that background, he created stories including the documentaries The Russian War and The Sochi Project. In many projects, he experiments with new story formats in which film, exhibition, web and Arnolds favourite publication format - the book - are combined.