Marco Van Duyvendijk Eastward Bound

Marco van Duyvendijk EASTWARD BOUND

Netherlands: Marco van Duyvendijk, 2010

In June 2009 I visited the Metropolitan Museum of Photography in Tokyo. The museum was hosting an exhibition of nineteenthcentury photographs of Japan: some taken by Japanese photographers for a foreign audience and others taken by foreigners in Japan. In one of the gallery texts the term Orientalism was defined as “a yearning for the East.” I recognized myself in this concise formulation. How nice it would be simply to appropriate this term: you see, this is what I have done over the past ten years; it reflects my interests, my freedom, my fantasy and creativity. . . .

I have spent more than four of the last ten years abroad. I have no doubt that there is something of a “Western vision” in my photographs. They represent my perspective on the world. I am in many respects typically Dutch: my perception, my sense of justice, my individualism, my lack of tact and refinement. But all this travelling has made me more modest about my own values and opinions. Any sense of superiority is alien to my Orientalism. I know where I come from, yet every country I have visited has left its mark on me.