Do you recognize this? The feeling that your are standing with your head against a wall? Alone in the world while trying to keep yourself standing. Sometimes you can only fall back on yourself. Arjan used to have this feeling regularly and it became his inspiration for making RELIANT.
Arjan ran around with a few ideas to visualize his feeling. But something was missing. It wasn't until he photographed Dave for a project at the photo academy that the pieces of the puzzle fell into place.
During the project, Arjan learned a lot about Dave. Dave told him that he wanted to be a soldier, just like Arjan. He had started with the basic military training, but Dave still had to come out of the closet. He noticed that this was not so easy within the Armed Forces and therefore had stopped the training.
For Arjan this was a recognisable situation. He had been working for the military for a long time when he became open about his sexual orientation. Just like Dave, he had the feeling of standing with his head against the wall. With only himself to hold on to. So it was without a doubt that he was eager to work with Dave to capture that feeling.
No matter what happens in life, no matter how difficult it can be at times, you can always fall back on yourself. Therein lies loneliness but at the same time is a form of strength.
The stage of the an empty old theater in Hengelo, acted temporarily as theater of life. Besides RELIANT, Arjan also worked there on some other images.