Siris Amsterdam
aka Jean-Philippe Rebuffet​
p h o t o g r a p h y
{current} projects
This page keeps an up to date log of what my current projects are.
Why Us ? (Beirut 2005-2012)
​In memory of the victims of the assasinations of Rafic Hariri, Antoine Ghanem, and Wissam Al-Hassan.​
"Why Us ? (Beirut 2005-2012)" is part of a commemorative series of 23 digitally constructed wall murals, in memory of the assassinations of Rafic Hariri (2005), Antoine Ghanem (2007) and Wissam Al-Hassan (2012) in Lebanon, men of peace,
representing a dream for a whole nation, a dream which got broken by terrorists killing them and many other victims.
The "Why Us" exhibition presents the same person, a young Lebanese woman, as a symbol of the victims, a symbol of my own terror, a symbol of so many victims, killed randomly, which remain almost anonymous. Using the same model also guarantees my respect for the families of the victims, respect for their privacy, respect for their grieve, and, if their strength overcomes mine, respect for forgiveness.
I can not forgive, and I won't.
From an artistic perspective, stricto sensu, the murals remind me my walks in the city of Beirut, where beautiful murals, paintings, get crushed by another bombing, another attack, another unspeakable cruelty. These murals are the voice of the innocents.
From
I l i u m
​Revisiting THE ILIAD by Homer. The slideshow on the left contains casting snapshots for the character of Cassandra, depicting the ironic condition of mankind.
In Greek mythology, Cassandra (also known as Alexandra) was the daughter of King Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy.
Her beauty caused Apollo to grant her the gift of prophecy.
In an alternative version, she spent a night at Apollo's temple, at which time the temple snakes licked her ears clean so that she was able to hear the future (this is a recurring theme in Greek mythology, though sometimes it brings an ability to understand the language of animals rather than an ability to know the future).
When she did not return his love, Apollo placed a curse on her so that no one would ever believe her predictions. She is a figure both of the epic tradition and of tragedy, where her combination of deep understanding and powerlessness exemplify the ironic condition of mankind.
​Inspired by André Kertész book The Polaroids, this project presents one "digital instant film" per day, depicting the mood or the discovery of the day.​
​After the death of his wife, André Kertész consoled himself by taking up a new camera, the Polaroid SX70. As with earlier equipment, he mastered the camera and produced a provocative body of work that both honored his wife and lifted him out of depression.
​Here Kertész dipped into his reserves one last time, tapping new people, ideas, and tools to generate a whole new body of work through which he transformed from a broken man into a youthful artist. Taken in his apartment just north of New York City's Washington Square, many of these photographs were shot either from his window or in the windowsill.
The photoblog Instantfilms can be seen as a photo-journal where most of the pictures are taken at New York City, USA.​
​Uploaded from my mobile phone, the polaroids start June 1st, 2011, and is an ongoing, hopefully never-ending project.
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​My project Series, Unreal will come back in New York City in 2013. Through this work, I will invite viewers to open up themselves by commenting on their own exploration of my exhibition via an active blog platform.
​In 2008, I began a photography project called Series, Unreal documenting various areas of post-processed subjects, mostly portraits, in which the persona depicted by the final rendition was radically different than the original shot, so far away that once I was showing that last rendition to the model, he/she was feeling uncomfortable, not (at all) recognizing anything to himself/herself.
These models (which I called objects in the first project) who openly self-identify as different and out of the main stream, are now being subjects for a re-interpretation of the purpose of Series, Unreal, leading to the upcoming The Series, where you can discover a preview here.
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