In different capacities Jonathan De Maeyer (°1994, BE) explores his relationship with landscape. He attempts to understand the landscape by becoming a part of it, through observation and documentation from within. His practice engages with themes of (non-)human relationships, environmental perception, ecology, food, and agriculture. Through both fictional and documentary approaches that question human perspectives, and by employing a range of media, often beginning with the image, his work seeks to investigate and articulate the complexity and reality of the living world.

In my practice, I aim to contribute to an alternative trajectory within the arts, one that facilitates slow, in-depth processes rooted in fieldwork. The subjects I explore require more than a passing glance; they call for sustained attention, long-term involvement, and a strong commitment to dialogue and co-creation. In this context, I don’t view photography as a final product, but as a way of taking visual notes. It allows me to work outside the pressures of production-driven expectations, and instead focus on structures and dynamics that only begin to unfold when I spend more time in one place. Extensive fieldwork and research are essential to me. They give me the opportunity to make myself less visible as a maker and to look beyond first impressions or preconceived ideas. This approach allows the subject or environment to speak for itself. By spending time in a place, documenting and sketching that time, and building a deep connection to the surroundings, I try, guided by the rhythm of the changing seasons, to translate a site-specific, living entity into a presentation or interpretation.

In 2019 Jonathan De Maeyer obtained a master's degree in Fine Arts - Photography at LUCA School Of Arts Ghent under the guidance of Marc De Blieck. Since graduating, his work has been shown in exhibitions at Netwerk (Aalst), MuZee (Ostend), FoMu (Antwerp), Kunsthal (Ghent) and Bpart (Berlin), among others. In 2020, he participated in the group exhibition Currents#7 at Z33 (Hasselt), curated by Melanie Deboutte and Louis-Philippe Van Eeckhoutte.

Since 2021, he has been conducting artistic research on different forms of seasonality and coexistence in the European countryside with the collective "Seasonal Neighbours. The work was presented in 2022 in the exhibition 'Our Invisible Hands' at Z33 (Hasselt). A publication of this research will be published by Onomatopee (Eindhoven) in April 2024. He represented his work and the collective in Vevey (Switzerland) at the Foodculture Days Art Biennale and at the Village Makers Festival in Wortel organized by Ar-Tur. This was followed by several exhibitions and collaborations. Among others, he realized the short film "Memory of a Brick Clamp" together with Ciel Grommen and Maximiliaan Royakkers that was part of the exhibition "Au Charbon" (CID, Mons) and "Reparative Research" (De Carré, LUCA School of Arts Ghent).

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email: jonathandemaeyer@hotmail.com

tel: +32470022552athan De Maeyer, °1994, België

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Happy collaborator of Seasonal Neighbours Collective