Ten friends having a meal on ten consecutive days in field in the Dutch countryside. Each day the friends, the tables and the food were shifted closer to the horizon. The photographs of the ten meals were assembled into a single image of a large party. Each friend appears ten times in the photograph, each time in a different outfit. The colours are carefully balanced: the outfits in the background are more brightly coloured than those in the foreground so that they attract equal attention and because of the expanse of blue sky there are no blue outfits.
Hundred different tailors in Beijing made their outfits, not because this made the outfits more affordable but to show that the real world is at least ten times larger that that of the friends in the field. Each of us in the West is probably connected with thousands of Chinese, Thai, Filipino, Indonesian and Indian workers through the products with which we fill our lives.
By being multiplied by ten, each person in the photograph has been rendered an anonymous figure. However, the magazine ‘Ten To One’ introduces us personally to the hundred tailors behind the outfits. A hundred shop fronts, workshops, outfits and tailors were photographed. Even the labels sewn into the outfits and the sales receipts are given a place in the magazine.
It made me wonder how many people are there in my closet …
Artists: Zijlmans & Jongenelis
Website: www.tentoone.nl