Last Scene

‘Last Scene’ (2016) is a series of 47 photographs of places in The Netherlands that were chosen by terminally ill patients to go and see as their last wish. The project centres on the power of a well-loved place to compress an outlook on life into a telling scene that is at once melancholic and joyful. The simplicity of each landscape or scene heightens attention to an inner journey of remembering the past and envisioning a future that no longer includes you. In contemporary culture the notion of death and dying is often consciously ignored. This project gives the viewer a way in to grapple with the question of where we come from, and where we are going. The images turn into mirrors: on the one hand you try imagine the person who looked at the scene for the last time, while at the same time it encourages introspection: what would my wish be? These scenes were photographed at the date and time of the actual last visit.