Max Pinckers & Quinten De Bruyn, LOTUS, 2016

“‘What is documentary?’ he seems to be asking. ‘And what is staged by me? What is performed by the subjects in frame, consciously or not? How much does our behaviour in front of a camera lens stem from the visual culture that surrounds us?’ These questions help us to understand Lotus as part of an ongoing enquiry, one questioning the roles that the photograph, photographer and subject play when a defining – even decisive – moment is singled out from the many. They serve to remind us that the making of the image is integral to the understanding of the image – that even if we taste the lotus and lose the desire to find our way home, we can still smote the grey sea with our oars.” – Tom Seymour, Book Review, British Journal of Photography, July 2017

“In many ways, Lotus takes an unprecedented approach to photographic storytelling. Pinckers and De Bruyn use delicate artificial lighting and careful staging in their snapshot-like photographs, but unexpected elements and hints of improvisation also find a place in their work. While focusing on the serious and urgent subject of the transsexual community and its search for a place in society, the book also exposes the actual process of behind the scenes image making. This duality of surface and underneath, of appearance and actuality, animates both the subject and the artistic process. Pinckers and De Bruyn mindfully balance the thin line between truth and fantasy, allowing fiction to widen our perception of reality.”
– Olga Yatskevich, Book Review, Collector Daily, December 2016