The Making Of
The Journey of Leo Boer
From left to right: Dymfy van Meel, Nathalie van der Straten, Willemijn Heldoorn, Sanne Barendrecht, Yasmin Katlich, Gemma Rijnders, Teune Derks, Bart Wagemakers (Lecturer HU), Jonas Viteri Fernández, Koen Verdurmen, Nadine Borst, Daan van der Pluijm (not in the picture).
Eleven students of the HKU (University of Arts Utrecht) from different disciplines (Photography, Graphic Design and Image and Media Technology) were inspired by the story and impressed by the pictures. In collaboration with Bart Wagemakers of the University of Applied Sciences Utrecht they set up a project to create a new experience from the inherited information. They envisioned how to present Leo’s personal story to a modern audience and decided to organize an exhibition with a large triptych video installation combined with an extraordinary book.
The team started with intensive reading, discussing and selecting images. A split-up into two groups was made to get the right focus on the two main goals: one group for the creation of the book and the other for the video content and building a physical installation.
The physical video installation consists of three large canvas screens. The construction is made of wood, the canvas of linen cloth. This construction was specially designed to be easily to assemble and dismantle, to make it a mobile exhibition.
The video content has a designed smooth flow over the three screens. It consists of images, diary fragments and sound that appear and flow-over, thereby creating a sense of being there on the scene in the 1950s.
The book was designed to represent images bundled and layered in combinations that challenge the reader to dive into the journey and see images in a new perspective. The book has a beautiful soft cover made of cloth with some prints of Leo’s pictures. The book comes with a large geographical map that is slightly opaque and can be used to slide over the map images in the book, so the reader is able to locate the events presented in the book.
