“Quiet, serene and filled with memories wandering through the gently sloping and woody landscape. This is my story about an unprecedented beautiful piece of Friesland, Myn Heitelân. Extraordinary encounters and enchanted hidden places. Meet Gaasterland.”
For Gaasterland Kees Muizelaar was commissioned by the state Friesland to tour through the area of Gaasterland, the place where he was born. During his journey he captured landscapes and made portraits of the local people that he met. The assignment was intended to share the area, which is a former municipality in the northern part of the Netherlands. Its official name is West Frisian which in Dutch is Gaasterland. In 2014 it merged with the municipalities of Lemsterland and Skarsterlân to form the new municipality called De Fryske Marren.
Kees Muizelaar is a Dutch documentary photographer who investigates things that are already there, but most people forget to look at. The characters in his photos choose their own paths through life and sometimes live on the periphery of society: truck drivers, a never-married farmer, the inhabitants of a commune in the forest. Muizelaar's photographs are characterised by their melancholic, almost poetic style, and a deep sense of respect for their subjects. Muizelaar graduated from the Utrecht Academy of Fine Arts in 2011 and now works on personal and commissioned projects.