Sara Blokland

Neutrals, 2002, photo on Dibond, 5x 90 × 90 cm

Neutrals, 2002, photo on Dibond, 5x 120 × 90 cm

Neutrals (2002) consists of two separate yet connected series, both drawn from Sara Blokland’s family albums from the 1970s and 1980s. One series isolates domestic interiors, while the other focuses on figures who are closest family members. By separating space and people, it disrupts the unity of the original snapshot and reconfigures the idea of the family portrait. Central to the work is the act of rephotographing. Rather than reproducing the images, they are ‘re-recorded,’ introducing distance and a shift in perspective. This process transforms intimate family photographs into images that feel detached and observational, almost resembling a surveillance-like gaze. They appear often to be unaware of being photographed. In contrast, the interiors are still and uninhabited, emphasizing structure, light, and arrangement. This tension between intimacy and distance is key to Neutrals.  Central to the work is the act of rephotographing. Rather than reproducing the images, they are ’re-recorded’, introducing a tension between intimacy and distance. By zooming in, the family photo as such disappears as it starts to resemble a surveillance image, while this same closeness fuses skin and photographic grain together. For Blokland, this ‘neutralization’ is not an objectifying act, but a subjective method with which she, as a sister, daughter, and niece, seeks closeness to her family through the camera, while that same camera remains present as a mediating lens that distances.