It is the nature of photography to exist in multiple and various contexts simultaneously. A photograph's change in context, however, can color its subsequent interpretation. This essay considers Rineke Dijkstra's photographic series...
moreIt is the nature of photography to exist in multiple and various contexts simultaneously. A photograph's change in context, however, can color its subsequent interpretation. This essay considers Rineke Dijkstra's photographic series Almerisa (1994-2008; figure 1), and the backgrounds that have informed its analysis, based on considerations ranging from formal likeness to contemporaneous social and political events. Almerisa consists of eleven photographs of a Bosnian refugee taken over a period of more than fourteen years. While much has been written on Rineke Dijkstra's photographs in general, there is little about Almerisa. Instead, Almerisa is frequently viewed as a small part of Dijkstra's larger project of photographing adolescents. Furthermore, in much of the literature Dijkstra is consistently compared to a fixed roster of photographers, including German photographer August Sander, whose work dates back to the first half of the twentieth century. While these are valid backgrounds on which to locate Almerisa, something is missing. The sociopolitical context in which the series was shot has never been discussed. Formally, the photographs appear similar to the documentary approach found in many German photographers, such as Sander, and critical reception has focused on the form as well as the transformation of the subject. Dijkstra's series strategically deflects a sociopolitical reading by her seemingly objective presentation of the subject. Considering the painful relationship between the Netherlands and Srebrenica as well as an ongoing debate on immigration in the Netherlands -both of which received a great deal of attention at the time Dijkstra was shooting Almerisathe series needs to be analyzed in the sociopolitical context of the Netherlands in which her work was made. Such a contextual analysis will lead to a deeper understanding of the series, which shows a Bosnian girl in all likelihood displaced by war. As Dijkstra followed Almerisa, immigration debates moved to the forefront in the Netherlands, and anti-immigrant politicians focused on the inability of immigrants to integrate into Dutch culture. With Almerisa, however, Dijkstra presents a seamless transition of a Bosnian refugee into a Dutch citizen, which stands in direct opposition to dominant political discourse.
