Mimicry

Walking through the New York neighborhood of Williamsburg, I kept thinking I saw my father pass by. Not as he looked then, but as I knew him from old photographs. Young men with thick black curls, moustaches and beards, wearing 1980s-style training tops, tight jeans, often riding racing bikes. They looked like the fathers of my generation in the 1980s. They looked like their fathers.

At first, I understood this as a matter of fashion – the ‘retro’ trend that seems to run parallel with my generation. But on reflection, this everyday sight began to raise broader questions about the time we live in. Why would a generation want to look like its parents?

I asked young men and women to wear a piece of clothing their parents used to wear at the same age and to reenact a found photograph of them. In front of the camera, wearing their parents’ clothes and imitating their images, the sitters performed that relation. The photographs reveal neither the sitters’ identities nor those of their parents, but something of the relationship between them.

Published in 2010 Design: SYB Text: Bas Haring, ‘Slippers and sandals’ 20.5 × 23.5 cm / 8,07 x 9,25 inch, hardcover 48 pages ISBN 9789090254524 Price: € 24,50 (excl. shipping costs)

Mimicry was selected as ‘Best Photobook of the Year 2010’ by Martin Parr for Photo-Eye Magazine. Trouw and IANN published the series, Maartje Wortel wrote about it in Tirade. It was part of photobook exhibitions made by FotoDepartament at Lishui Photobook Festival as well as part of the exhibition and accompanying photobook Het Nederlandse Fotoboek by Frits Gierstberg en Rik Suermondt in Netherlands Fotomuseum in Rotterdam. This publication was made possible with the generous support of Mondriaan Fonds.