Fotokroniek 65: Pie Aerts
04 september 20194 September (8:00 pm) at Pakhuis De Zwijger (Piet Heinkade 179, Amsterdam): a conversation with documentary photographer Pie Aerts and Gunifort Uwambaga (publisher at MENDO).
Documentary photographer Pie Aerts has captured the unfiltered beauty of daily existence in everything but everyday locations. With the emphasis on the simple, the imperfect and the mysterious, the book introduces landscapes, people and animals which he photographed in these numerous places. How can photography makes us feel connected to different people, landscapes and animals around the world?
The new photography book Tales from the Roads Less Traveled takes you along on the extraordinary trips of Pie Aerts, the Dutchman who traveled the world in search of visual stories about real people. Pie Aerts started traveling the world after studying at the Hotel Management School of Maastricht and a corporate career at Ahold Delhaize. After countless pictures and interactions, he developed himself as a self-taught photographer that also shares his stories on Instagram to a large audience.
The book, designed by MENDO and jointly published with teNeues, bundles the work that Pie Aerts has shot all around the world. The stories as they are told in Aerts’ book show the state of the world anno 2019, both through his documentary style images and the text by his partner Jessica Wintz. It seems like we get more and more estranged from our surroundings and each other. How can photography help to make us feel more connected?
"As a visual storyteller, I’d like to give a voice to both the places I visit and the people and animals I meet on my travels. Through the book, it is my hope that people reconnect with other people, with landscapes and the animals who live in those landscapes. Both cultures, landscapes and animals are fading in a high speed. I want to unleash a deeper understanding, to make people think."