What do photos tell us about the people we love, about the people we relate to? What do photos tell us about ourselves, and about how we relate to the other? Does photography bring us closer to the other? These are the questions that Christiaens asks herself in her work, each time through a personal and intimate narrative about family and relationships. 

The medium with which she does that, photography, is also questioned. Is the lens a window into the other? Or rather a mirror for ourselves and our desires? What changes when the photographer steps into the image and becomes a subject also?

Whether it’s documenting her sister, portraying her own family during the pandemic or looking for overlaps and differences in her own story and that of her mother, what Christiaens is trying to do is to create an image of herself in relation to the other, and of the other in relation to her.

Stefan Vanthuyne