Proving that nothing good happens in a hurry, Bert Teunissen‘s travelogue collection Slow Happiness was over 20 years in the making. Shot as a side project to his other more focused series such as Domestic Landscapes, the images built up as the Dutchman travelled the world on assignment, taking in 26 countries along the way.
With a tendency towards the candid rather than the carefully composed, many of Teunissen’s subjects are unaware of his presence, shot from behind, from the waist down, or just riding past on a motorbike with a chair on their heads; small town characters, quiet backstreets and overlooked points of interest are to the fore. As well as some of the images being 20 years old, Teunissen has given them an extra aged feeling with his development process. He has used vintage photographic paper acquired on his travels, some dating back to World War Two, which he claims gives qualities of colour and contrast that modern papers lack, and the finished prints on display at KK Outlet, Hoxton, have been mounted in aluminium frames designed by fellow countryman Piet Hein Eek. The Slow Happiness exhibition runs until 31 July.
