Born in Amsterdam, 1972.
Vivianne Sassen studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Holland. She first studied fashion design, but then she decided to change her speciality and become a photographer. When she was two years old her family moved to Kenya where she spent three years of her life. She was very little but old enough to remember the time spent in Africa. When Vivianne was five years old the Sassen family decided to come back to Amsterdam. It was an unexpected turn in life of young Vivianne. That is how she describes her feelings: "For a year or so I felt like my real life was going on without me back in Africa and I was living this parallel life here. It was painful in a way, this feeling that I had left my home behind."
Africa is still a sensitive subject for Sassen: "To me, Africa is vivid colours and strong contrasts of light and dark," she says. "I remember looking at women and children sitting under the trees sheltering from the sun and, even as a child, seeing these graphic shapes." Sassen admits that she always lacked that variety of colour in Holland. In her work Sassen always experiments with shape and colour. On some of the photos it is noticeable that some detailes were cut out from magazines and then glued on top of an image (for example her portrait that is posted here). In her experiments Sassen uses shadows, bright colors and mirrors to ’play’ with reflections and construct geometrical forms. She sees herself as a sculptor building unbelievable constructions from human figures. Sometimes you can hardly tell from the first glance how many people were captured on the image. Vivianne Sassen published two photo books. One of them - „Flamboya“ - illustrates brightness and lightness of Africa and people who live there. Another one is called „Parasomnia“
(a range of sleeping disorders, a state when it is hard to determine whether you’re sleeping or not) illustrates Sassen’s impressions and memories from childhood. (Darja Rovba)
And here’s the link for her interview that I showed:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJM5cFGy5R4
