ALL ANTWERP. “We can do projects so that others can tell their story” (Antwerp)
Lukas Verdijk with son Flor. — © Victoriano Moreno
Every weekday our reporter and photographer pick a casual passer-by off the street for a nice conversation. Want everyone has a story. And certainly in Antwerp. Today: Lukas Verdijk (37) and little Flor.
I am primarily a photography teacher at the art academy and the art high school. I also do my own work as an artist. These are more socially engaged projects, together with my colleague Vesna Faassen. Our last major project was the book ‘Opgewezen’, in which we give a stage to black female voices in Belgium. It is a collection of reflections on women and being black in Belgium, written down by both Dutch and French speakers. We immediately look for the connection between the two countries. It actually started five years ago with another project around colonization. This is based on the knowledge that there is not yet a single Congolese historian who lives and works in Africa. That was a trigger for us. We have been working on social inequality, racism and decolonization for some time. We then found five Congolese historians, all men of age. When the book When we talk about colonization; finished, we knew that there was still a void to fill, focused on the female voice in the story and that from their Belgian perspective. As a white man it is always a search for what our position is, we are aware of that. It is from an urgency that we feel that we contribute something to the debate. We do so, so that others can tell their story. coat