Bieke Depoorter is a Belgian photographer and visual artist at Magnum Photos.

Bieke Depoorter received a master’s degree in photography at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent in 2009. Three years later, at 25 years old, she was made a nominee of the photo cooperative Magnum Photos, where she was named a full member in 2016.

Depoorter has won several awards and honors, including the Magnum Expression Award, The Larry Sultan award and the Prix Levallois. She recently got nominated for the Deutsche Börse Foundation Photography Prize.

She has published five books: 'Agata', 'Ou Menya', 'I am About to Call it a Day', 'As it May Be', and 'Sète#15'. In 2020, Depoorter started her own publishing platform ‘Des Palais’, together with Tom Callemin.

The relationships Depoorter establishes with the subjects of her photographs lie at the foundation of her artistic practice. Accidental encounters are the starting point, and how these interactions naturally develop dictates the suite. Several projects have been the result of Depoorter always questioning the medium itself.

In 'As it may be', Depoorter gradually became more aware of her status as an outsider, both culturally and as a photographer. So, in 2017, she revisited Egypt with the first draft of the book, inviting people to write comments directly onto the photographs.

In 'Sète#15', and also 'Dvalemodus', a short film she co-directed, she began to see her subjects as actors. Although she portrayed them in their true environments, she tried to project her own story onto the scenes, fictionalising the realities of her subjects in a way that blurred the lines between their world and hers.

In the recently self-published book 'Agata', Bieke Depoorter explores the complexities of the photographic enterprise, grappling with the relationship between photographer and subject. By diving deep into a collaborative working dynamic with a Polish woman, Agata Kay, that she met in a strip club in Paris, she creates a small alternate universe that served as a container for them to explore questions they each had regarding identity, performance and representation.

'Agata' is a project that asks more questions than it offers answers, first recognizing the well-worn idea of photographer-as-witness as a relative impossibility, then throwing all players involved under the microscope: photographer, subject, audience, and, of course, the medium itself.

In her ongoing project 'Michael', she investigates the disappearance and life of a man she met on the streets of Portland in 2015. After giving her three suitcases full of scrapbooks, notes and books, everyone lost sight of him.

Bieke Depoorter

Info

Name
Bieke Depoorter
Title
Photographer / visual artist
Country
Belgium
City
Gent

Supported projects

In Between

  • Culture

CAIRO - In Egypt the aftermath of a bloody summer is still palpable. In the southern city of Minya, the blackened church spires contrast a group of demonstrators holding yellow balloons: Morsi supporters are demanding that their president rule once again.

Cairopolis

  • Culture
  • Politics
  • Religion

CAIRO - Late 2011, early 2012. While people are dying on Tahrir Square, four Belgian photographers go in search of personal stories in a metropolis of 20 million inhabitants where fault lines have suddenly been enlarged. This results in images that you don't see on TV or in the newspaper.

The past is a foreign country

  • Equality
  • Youth
  • Migration

BRUSSELS - Eight underage asylum seekers were followed by Catherine Vuylsteke for one year. The Nadaar collective and three guest photographers each portrayed one of the youngsters.

Balkan war creates new casualties

  • Armed conflict
  • Politics

SREBRENICA - 15 years after the war in Bosnia over 7000 refugees still live in ‘temporary’ refugee camps in the heart of Europe. The Bosnians themselves want to forget about them, the NGO’s have left the country, moved on to new conflict zones. But the people are still there. Just like their children, who were born in these camps. They are a new generation of war victims, struggling not only with the trauma of their parents, but also with a lack of education and severe poverty. Domestic violence, abuse, alcoholism and addiction are common practise in these settlements.