I have worked on a project named ‘De Rijs’ revolving around the book The Voyage of Saint Brendan. The novel revolves around Saint Brendan an Irish Monk from Galway. According to legend he read a book on the miracles of creation and decided it was untrue. He therefore chose to burn the book; as a result an angel came to punish him. Saint Brendan was sent on a voyage in search for the truth. Amongst the company of various pilgrims, he set of to navigate around the world for the next nine years. He recorded his travel by writing down all that he encountered, which were in fact a lot of the matters he had first read about in the book he burned. Nowadays the story of Saint Brendan is also considered as a metaphor. In short the mentally arduous journey one has to go through in order to arrive safe and sound in paradise.

In the light of the project I have worked on, I felt a deep connection with the metaphorical meaning of Saint Brendan’s story. In order to convey both my own interpretation and feelings I decided to unify both text and photo to get my version of Saint Brendan’s story across, since photography and text both play an important role in my life. I delved into Saint Brendan’s story and visited the places he once visited as well. Gradually his quest to paradise became mine.

Short Bio

Annika Derksen is a photographer currently based in London. She has a bachelor in photography from Luca School of Arts, campus Narafi and is now enrolled in the MA documentary photography and photojournalism at the Westminster University. From a young age on she has been intrigued by everything surrounding her. This developed into a passion to captivate that what catches her eye. As she explored the bond between her and her camera and all she could accomplish, she started to develop an interest in visualising her own thoughts and ideas into photographs.

Related Links

derksenannika.com

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The Emerging Photographer Fund is supported by generous donors to the Magnum Foundation