Interview with Jantien de Bruin

Love, Memories, Loss. Creating this book was for me a way of dealing with the grief.

Sister Love is a story about Loss, memory, connection and sisters, and it was made after the suicide of my sister in 2015 caused by depression. After my sister’s death, I felt the need to create a memory. Making this book helped me to live through the grieving process. To share these emotions can hopefully give the viewer a form of consolation and recognition.

As this is our first interview, can you introduce your work in general?

I like to work on long term projects with a social and/or personal content. In a documentary and an autonomous working style, I want to tell stories and try to move the viewer/spectator in certain topics. By experiencing emotions while viewing a story, the story can be reached best. Themes about connection, and the lack and need of it, are to me very important.

How do you see this book in the bigger frame of your work?

The Museum van de Geest in Haarlem has bought the installation Sister Love and will exhibit it for 10 years. A book was to me an additional and valuable element to complete the story Sister Love.

 

Knowing that every detail is important, could you mention some technical detail that was of special importance for the realisation of the final product?

I worked with designer Suze Swarte. She understood my story and could transform it into a visual experience. She edited and found a structure to tell the story. So, an additional editor was not necessary. The special details Suze Swarte created support and strengthen certain elements in Sister Love. On the metallic cover the word Loss is a blind embossing, and throughout the book different sorts of paper and paper sizes where used. A Swiss binding technique was chosen. The most special effect is a varnish layer on all the pictures where my sister is in. So, you can always find her in the shiny silhouettes.

 

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