Erik Verheggen

Insula

Vlieland is the smallest inhabited island of the Dutch Wadden Islands and lies farthest from the mainland. In winter, when tourists have left, Vlieland transforms into a place of stark quiet.
For this project, I set out to document this landscape and was particularly drawn to the area designated for holiday dwellings, some of which are almost a hundred years old. Rather than focusing on the rich nature surrounding it, I chose to explore how the natural environment permeates and interacts with this developed area.
In my work, I try to trust instinct rather than facts, focusing on intuitive connections rather than subject matter. I aim to capture the formal order, complexity, and ambiguity that arise from visual perception, prioritising the surface of the image over perspective or subject. In the case of this project, that plane often stunts the subject or even obscures it entirely, reflecting the route taken, which passed through abandoned and enclosed private properties.

Photos are honest in the sense that they show what they are without explicitly trying to be metaphors. Simultaneously, there is the poetics of the everyday, where ordinary scenes and subtle details gain significance through attention and context. For me, this is especially true for the more abstract qualities in photographic work. Textural observations can add layers of complexity, pattern, and depth to an image. Ambiguity can challenge viewers to form their own interpretations and think more deeply about what they see.
I feel that through an intuitive engagement with photography, something can resonate and gain meaning, even if it is fleeting. In this way, even the most banal places can teach us things we do not yet know. At the very least, the act of seeing gives us joy.

Insula was born out of two walks a year apart and marks a period of both personal turmoil and creative reflection. The work serves as a visual meditation that I hope challenges us to consider what is hidden and what is revealed, prompting an exploration of the ways we construct meaning from partial information.

I am Erik Verheggen (b. 1981), a self-taught photographer based in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. I have a degree in both ecology and journalism, and I work as an editor-in-chief at a trade magazine publisher.


Instagram: @e.verhegg