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Draft:Jan van IJken

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jan van IJken
Born1965 (age 60–61)
Amersfoort, Netherlands
OccupationsPhotographer, filmmaker
Years active1990s–present
Websitejanvanijken.com

Jan van IJken (born 1965 in Amersfoort) is a Dutch photographer and filmmaker.[1][2] He is self-taught and works on long-term projects. His early photography is social and documentary in subject, shot in black and white; his later films and photographs deal with nature, microscopy and embryology, on the border between art and science.[3][4]

Van IJken published three documentary photobooks between 2001 and 2005. One of them, Dierbaar (Precious Animals), was commissioned by the Rijksmuseum and NRC Handelsblad for the Document Nederland series.[5] From around 2010 he turned to film. His short films The Art of Flying (2015), Becoming (2018) and Planktonium (2021) were shown at international festivals and published by outlets including National Geographic and Aeon.[6][7][8]

Early life and career

[edit]

Van IJken was born in Amersfoort in 1965 and lives and works in Leiden.[1] Self-taught, he began working as a photographer in the 1990s.[9] He started out in pop and concert photography before turning to documentary work.[10]

Documentary photography

[edit]

His first books dealt with social subjects. A Touch of Divinity (2001) records Christian devotion in Eastern Europe, drawn from travels through Poland, Slovakia, Romania and Ukraine, and toured as an exhibition in Dutch churches.[11][12] New Neighbours (2004) set daily life in the countries that joined the European Union in 2004 against everyday life in the Netherlands.[13]

For Dierbaar (in English, Precious Animals, 2005) he photographed the relationship between people and animals in the Netherlands. It was the eighth commission in the Document Nederland series, run by the Rijksmuseum together with NRC Handelsblad.[5] The accompanying exhibition moved to the photography museum Huis Marseille in Amsterdam, as the Rijksmuseum was being rebuilt at the time.[4] The series also appeared abroad, among others in Mother Jones, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung and El Mundo.[14][15][16]

Films

[edit]

Around 2010 van IJken moved into filmmaking. Facing Animals (2012), a continuation of Precious Animals, was edited with the ethnographic filmmaker Metje Postma.[4] A year later he made the short film Nevermore, about the process of action painting.[2]

The Art of Flying (2015) is a short black-and-white film about the murmurations of the common starling, filmed in the Netherlands.[4] It played at more than fifty festivals, among them the Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival, and a short version appeared on National Geographic's platforms and on Aeon.[2][17][7][6]

Becoming (2018) follows the embryonic development of an alpine newt, from a single fertilised cell to hatching, using time-lapse and video microscopy.[6] After National Geographic put the film online, it was viewed more than ten million times.[6][4] In 2019 it was shown, together with an interview, on the Dutch television programme De Wereld Draait Door.[18] The film travelled to numerous festivals.[2]

Planktonium (2021) is a short film and photo series about the microscopic plankton of Dutch waters, filmed through microscopes.[8][19] The Norwegian sound artist Jana Winderen composed its soundtrack.[4] Museum De Lakenhal in Leiden acquired the film as a video work and showed it during the city's year as European City of Science in 2022.[4][2] The plankton photographs ran in New Scientist, the Dutch edition of National Geographic and the Süddeutsche Zeitung.[8][20][21] A one-minute sequence of his plankton footage was used in the "Ocean" episode of the BBC series Planet Earth III (2023), narrated by David Attenborough.[22]

In 2023 he filmed Arctic plankton aboard an icebreaker sailing from Svalbard to the North Pole, for the National Geographic and Disney+ series Pole to Pole with Will Smith (2026). He joined the production at the invitation of Nutopia and worked alongside the marine scientist Allison Fong.[9]

Exhibitions and collections

[edit]

Photographs from Precious Animals were shown at Huis Marseille in 2005 and 2006.[5][4] Work from the series is held by the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.[23][24] Planktonium belongs to the collection of Museum De Lakenhal.[4] In 2026 his video work The Art of Flying was shown in Birds, an exhibition at the Mauritshuis in The Hague curated by Simon Schama.[25]

Awards

[edit]
  • 2012 – Grand Prix for short films, Split Film Festival, Croatia, for Facing Animals[2]
  • 2016 – Best Art Film, Pärnu International Documentary and Anthropology Film Festival, for The Art of Flying[2]
  • 2018 – Best Short Documentary, Innsbruck Nature Film Festival, for Becoming[2][26]
  • 2019 – Visual Science Award, Imagine Science Film Festival (Abu Dhabi), for Becoming[2]
  • 2021 – Ninth place, Nikon Small World Photomicrography Competition[2][27]
  • 2022 – J. B. Czecz Award for Best Cinematography, Włodzimierz Puchalski International Nature Film Festival, for Planktonium[2][28]

Publications

[edit]
  • A Touch of Divinity: Images of devotion in Eastern Europe. Valkhof Pers, 2001. ISBN 90-5625-102-3.[11]
  • New Neighbours. Reproka Visual Communication, Amersfoort, 2004.[13]
  • Dierbaar (Precious Animals). Voetnoot, 2005. Text by Ivo de Wijs. ISBN 9071877981.[5][29]
  • Planktonium. Terra. ISBN 978-90-8989-929-3 (English edition); Tecklenborg Verlag, 2023, ISBN 978-3-949076-18-3 (German edition).[8][30]
[edit]

References

[edit]
  1. 1 2 "European Photography 111 – Human/Nature". European Photography. No. 111. Summer 2022. Retrieved 24 September 2026. (portfolio and interview with Jan van IJken)
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 "Jan van IJken". ZKM Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe. Retrieved 24 September 2026.
  3. ↑ van Rotterdam, Marjolein (March 2020). "Verslaafd aan verwondering". Roots (in Dutch).
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 van Ree, Elsje (2022). "De verborgen schoonheid van plankton". PF Professionele Fotografie (in Dutch). No. 1. pp. 18–23.
  5. 1 2 3 4 Metz, Tracy (10 December 2005). "Vanuit de mens bezien heeft een dier alleen maar nut". Document Nederland. NRC Handelsblad (in Dutch).
  6. 1 2 3 4 Bittel, Jason (19 February 2019). "Incredible time-lapse shows a single cell transforming into a salamander". National Geographic. Retrieved 24 September 2026.
  7. 1 2 "The art of flying". Aeon. 23 November 2017. Retrieved 24 September 2026.
  8. 1 2 3 4 Li, Gege (1 January 2022). "Unsung heroes". New Scientist. pp. 26–27. Retrieved 24 September 2026.
  9. 1 2 Poege, Enrico (20 April 2026). "Filming the frozen world of plankton from Pole to Pole: an unforgettable voyage". Evident Scientific. Retrieved 24 September 2026.
  10. ↑ Joslin, Russell (2006). "Jan van IJken: Precious Animals". Shots. No. 93.
  11. 1 2 Hoeneveld, Herman (2001). "A Touch of Divinity: Images of devotion in Eastern Europe". PF (in Dutch). No. 6.
  12. ↑ "Divine inspiration". Nikon Pro. No. 16. Winter 2001.
  13. 1 2 "Nieuwe buren". Focus (in Dutch). Vol. 91, no. 5. 2004.
  14. ↑ "More equal than others". Mother Jones. November–December 2006. p. 78.
  15. ↑ "Da kreischen selbst die Hühner". Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung (in German). No. 2. 15 January 2006. p. 61.
  16. ↑ "Así de bien y mal tratamos a los animales". El Mundo (in Spanish). No. 332. 5 February 2006.
  17. ↑ "Umění létu / The Art of Flying". Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival. Retrieved 24 September 2026.
  18. ↑ "Jan van IJken". De Wereld Draait Door (in Dutch). BNNVARA. 15 February 2019. Retrieved 24 September 2026.
  19. ↑ Bittel, Jason (17 November 2021). "See the microscopic world of plankton in stunning detail". National Geographic. Retrieved 24 September 2026.
  20. ↑ "Verborgen schoonheid". National Geographic (in Dutch). Dutch edition. 2022.{{cite magazine}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  21. ↑ Krenz, David (23 April 2022). "Per Anhalter durch den Ozean". Süddeutsche Zeitung (in German). No. 93. Retrieved 24 September 2026.
  22. ↑ van IJken, Jan. "Plankton: An unseen universe". BBC. BBC One. Retrieved 24 September 2026.
  23. ↑ "Dierbaar: Jan van IJken fotografeert dier en mens in Nederland". Rijksmuseum. Retrieved 24 September 2026.
  24. ↑ "#9, from the series Precious Animals". The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Retrieved 24 September 2026.
  25. ↑ "The art of birds". Engelsberg Ideas. Retrieved 24 September 2026.
  26. ↑ "2018 INFF – The winners". Innsbruck Nature Film Festival. Retrieved 24 September 2026.
  27. ↑ "As intrigantes imagens microscópicas de concurso internacional". BBC News Brasil (in Portuguese). 17 September 2021. Retrieved 24 September 2026.
  28. ↑ "XIX Międzynarodowy Festiwal Filmów Przyrodniczych im. Włodzimierza Puchalskiego – finał". Wojewódzki Fundusz Ochrony Środowiska i Gospodarki Wodnej w Łodzi (in Polish). Retrieved 24 September 2026.
  29. ↑ "Jan van IJken: Precious Animals". LensCulture. Retrieved 24 September 2026.
  30. ↑ "Planktonium: Eine unsichtbare Welt". Tecklenborg Verlag (in German). Retrieved 24 September 2026.

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