I See a Melting Window
Photographs and moving images are combined into a dialogue. With a background in biology, Mayte precisely examines her surroundings. Small encounters become part of a larger ecosystem of images, allowing an interplay of associations to form.
Flattened into two dimensions, she analyses the relationship between humans and their environment, invisible biological processes, and the element of time. Delicate forms are reproduced, reinterpreted, and reconsidered, like the cracks in a butterfly’s wings or melting star-shaped ice cubes in a glass. Each image becomes a window into a new reality. In a universe of daydreams and routines, built upon fast-paced efficiency, she attentively watches slices of life unfold.
A10
The A10 is a moterway ring road around the city of Amsterdam. With is total length of 32 km it connects the city and within 15 minutes you can be from one side of the city to the other.
The ring itself can be described as a no mans place/land, its function is only to transport from one location to the other. When driving on the ring it is hard to locate yourself, this is enhance by the sound wall that separate the ring from the rest of the landscape but also the pavement, vegetation and patterns. Also the ring shape is a cause of this loss of connection as it stimulates driving on auto pilot. The only way to locate yourself is by the recognition of the high building and the gaps in the sound wall that show a peak of the surrounding.
This project shows the loss of recognition and the feeling it evokes. I include contributors of the A10, its surrounding, recognition points and shapes.
Hydrogen Bonds
The Dutch Research Council (NWO) and KABK initiated a project that invited me to work on NWO’s research programme Closed Cycles. By collaborating with an academic researcher, Dr. ir. Ruud Bartolomeus, I explored the connection between scientific and artistic research.
In May 2024 the results were presented in the form of exhibition and workshop, during NWO Life 2024 scientific conference in Egmond aan Zee. The exhibition Flowing Forward in Closed Cycles continued in location space Paradise, The Hague in July 2024.
This year's conference of NWO life takes place in Egmond, which coincidentally is also the village where I was born and have lived for 18 years. This coincidence sparked my motivation to create a site-specific work in my hometown. I still feel a strong connection to Egmond, since my family still lives there, but also because of the strong community feeling that is often noticeable in smaller towns.
Hearing Ruud Bartolomeus talk about the research in detail made me want to explore Egmond through the eyes of the done research. I used core messages like the purifying effects of the soil, the water system beneath the surface, groundwater levels, and the local effects of water regulations discussed in the research, to search for a place I could physically enter, but also for a space where I wanted to wander.
I found inspiration in the dune lands, where the locals experience issues with water regulations, and the history of Egmond. I connect this history and the current issues with the medium of water. Like a hydrogen bond. As a fishing town, water is what made the village stick together in the first place. It is their connecting factor, and now, being a witness of the community falling behind because of water.
By documenting the physical water on the flooded dune lands in Egmond aan Zee, I was able to zoom in on the local effects and consequences of groundwater regulations. I collected the stagnated water and used this for the process of emulsion lifting, a technique where water separates the emulsion layer of a polaroid which can then be transferred onto a new material. For the emulsion lifts, I used archive imagery that I found by diving into the historic communal events of Egmond. By activating this archive with water, I demonstrate how the communities were brought together by water in the first place, but how the water on the flooded Lankies now disrupts the communities from coming together.
Currently based in Amsterdam
Email for commissions and information
maytebreed@live.nl
@maytebreed
Mayte Breed (b. 1997) runs a photographic practice in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. She graduated from the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague in 2024, after receiving her bachelor’s degree in Future Planet Studies with a major in Biology from the University of Amsterdam. Coming from a small village Egmond aan den Hoef, she often feels overwhelmed by the fast pace of life, which leads to use photography as a method to explore and understand the everyday. Through her lens, she captures human interactions with their environment. This includes artificial representations in urban settings, encounters with plants and animals, and glimpses through humid windows. Her images evoke a sense of ease, achieved through careful pairings and the use of various media—photography, moving images, installations, and bookmaking. She combines moments in time from a world that often goes unnoticed by others.
2024 | Best of Graduates 2024
Group exhibition at Galery Ron Mandos
25 July - 15 September
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
2024 | Flowing Forward in Closed Cycles
Group exhibition at Paradise
27June - 31 July
The Hague, The Netherlands
2024 | Graduation Show 2024
Group exhibition at Royal Acamdy of Art
28 June - 2 July
The Hague, The Netherlands
2024 | Flowing Forward in Closed Cycles
Group exhibtion at NWO Life 2024
Commissioned by NWO
26 - 28 May
Egmond aan Zee, The Netherlands
2023 | As Above, So Below
Group exhibition at The Grey Space in The Middle
19 - 23 January
The Hague, The Netherlands
2022 | We Do/Are Photography
Group exhibitions at Internationale Photoszene Köln
20 - 22 October
Köln, Germany
2020 - 2024
BA Photography
Royal Academy of Arts
The Hague, The Netherlands
2016 - 2019
BSc Future Planet Studies
University of Amsterdam
Major Biology
2015-2016
BSc Biology
Univeristy of Amsterdam