Zoé Komkommer

Lives and works in Antwerp (BE).

Zoé Komkommer obtained her Master’s degree in Photography at Sint Lucas in Ghent. In addition to her personal work, several pieces of which are part of our collection, she also works on commercial assignments.

From a young age, she was introduced to photography by her mother, who documented family life with an analogue camera. Zoé consciously chooses analogue photography as well: a slower process in which photographing, waiting, and developing stand in contrast to the speed and transience of digital images.

De Weerschijn visualizes the everyday moments she seeks to capture and preserve. In a serene and poetic way, she tries to hold together the puzzle pieces that make up her life. Her images are outward signs of the life she leads, protected against the underlying fear that all may one day be lost. Her reality is bridged by a dreamlike world, she hovers between the fragility of existence and the power of being.

For the photobook Dat wij er waren, she drew from her own archive, which has gradually built itself over the years in and around a family home in the south of France. She chose to combine her images with those of her mother and grandmother — photographs they took years ago in the same place. In this way, she created a kind of past-future time, in which the house served as the central point and drew a new, generations-spanning line through the work.

Zoé has a sharp eye for detail and the ability to capture intimate, quiet moments. She does not focus on grand events, but finds poetry and beauty in the everyday scenes of her own life. The concepts of ‘time’ and ‘memory’ often form a central guiding thread in her work.

She writes about her own practice:

“I see it as capturing memories I want to preserve. They are moments I long for while they are still unfolding. A ray of light entering the room, a curtain moving, a hand resting on a shoulder. Time and again, these are fractions of the everyday that carry something within them that catches my eye.”