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Hitchhiking still life
December 2024
Assignment part 1: "Create a still life about a culture"
Hitchhiking culture is something that is close to my heart, many summers I've spend asking strangers for favours, bringing me all across the continent for nothing but a smile. However, when I share this passion with friends or relatives, I usually get concerning frowns followed by a: "isn't it dangerous," "what if you're kidnapped" or other worrysome comments.

This fearfull thinking that goes through their minds and unquestionably also the minds of the drivers that don't take me is what saddens me about where this culture went in the last 20 years.

The symbolic position the hitchhiker is in today, in between freedom yet crushed by the stigma against the one standing next to the road is what I attempt to communicate with this still life.


Assignment part 2: "Animate your still life"
I decided to animate the desolateness that can be experienced while hitchhiking, the wind and emptiness around one.
Learning process
In this semester I was very focused on trying to communicate my ideas with symbolism, I struggled a lot with finding a way to communicate about this topic from my perspective without ignoring the terrible experiences that build the stigma around hitchhiking.

This uncertainty in how to communicate my ideas did however allow me to experiment with many different compositions and ways of telling my story, resulting in many dreamy and abstract landscapes.
A cloudy scene
I started with a cloudy, heavenly scene, filled with dead doves symbolizing the hitchhiker's loss of freedom.

With the gas station setting in the background, a safe haven for everyone hitchhiker.
Surrealism
For the first time personally I tried a surrealist approach to my compositions, of which I especially like the results above.

An infinite stream of cars passing by, the hitchhiker left alone to wait for the inevitable soul who will pull them along.
Moving from heaven to earth
In an attempt to connect my still life more to the common signs of hitchhiking, I decided to take the scene into a more realistic surrounding.

A surrounding that can be filled more traditionally with a hitchhiker's gear.