Entendue is an ongoing work involving different media that explores the cultural heritage of (Asian) elephants in relation to ivory objects found in museum collections. The project began in 2022, when I was invited to participate in the Thailand Biennial where I focused on the stories of two specific elephants that were taken from their native habitats and brought to foreign countries.
The first is Hansken, an elephant brought from Ceylon (present-day Sri Lanka) to the Netherlands in 1633, who became a well-loved subject of Rembrandt van Rijn. The second is a white elephant, part of a pair brought to Nagasaki, Japan, in the early 18th century. This elephant is believed to have been portrayed by the revered Japanese artist Itō Jakuchū.
With these stories and my own childhood memories of drawing animals in de Rotterdam zoo with my dad as a point of departure I started portraying elephants in zoos in the Netherlands and Japan on half frame format black and white negative. These photographs were first on view during an exhibition at Galerie Andriesse Eyck in Amsterdam in 2024.
The development of this project is supported by Het Niemeijer fonds and Het Tijlfonds Cultuurfonds
