Dirk Kome – Vijf lange meden

Generations of a farm family

Different timelines converge in the work of the Dutch photographer Dirk Kome. Kome’s photos are for the first time supplemented with material from his family archives. An intimate portrait of generations of a farm family against a backdrop of passing time. Kome’s personal work reveals the beauty of daily family and farm life.

The passing of time

‘You should photograph what you love,’ Koos Breukel advised Dirk Kome (Rockanje, 1976) when Kome was finding his feet as an artist at the Rietveld Academy. He took the advice to heart and gained high praise with his graduation photographs of his parents and brother on the family farm in the village of Rockanje in South Holland. In the 23 years that followed, Kome continued to return to his birthplace and work there for weeks, both as a farmhand and a photographer. Put in words this period of time is a linear abstraction, but as Kome says: ‘Nothing is synchronous; nothing waits to move until something begins, and nothing stands still just because something has stopped.’ In his photos, the passing of time is revealed by the increasing frailty of his parents and the way his brother gradually takes over the running of the farm.