Heleen van Royen - Selfmade - 2014

Heleen van Royen has over the past years obsessively photographed herself. She used her mobile phone, a webcam and mirrors to capture her mood, body and sexuality. This resulted in a substantial collection of images in which the author exposes herself both literally and figuratively. Selfmade contains a selection of the photographic self-portraits, which are organized into five themes: light, love, sex, transience, and darkness.

'Thelen observes in her photos with painful precision her femininity, her loneliness and the confrontation with the irrevocable physical decay.'
Fifi Visser, documentary filmmaker and co-curator of Selfmade

'You can see these photos as a struggle. The struggle of a woman who wants to be ruthless. Not at the expense of others, at most at her own expense.'
Hans Aarsman, photo detective

'Like a modern Jan Cremer, Van Royen plays her audience, not only in the literary field, but also beyond. The images are raw, almost animalistic, and thus honest and vulnerable. Together they form a grand self-portrait of the author.'
Aad Meinderts, director of the Dutch Literature Museum in The Hague. The museum devoted an exhibition to the photographs in 2014.

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