LL: I started to develop this technique while I was researching this story of pollution. The mud of the creek became rich in silver because the Belgian photo company, Gevaert, discharged wastewater into it. I discovered newspaper articles describing the story of a former worker at the factory who decided to filter the mud to get back the precious metal and run a business out of it.
When I think about that mud, which contains silver, I speculate on the possible idea that we can use it to print an image on it. However, this is not possible because this creek is not polluted anymore. I thought this idea of using the mud from the creek to materialize images of the creek itself was a poetic way to reactivate this past story of pollution. In order to make it possible, I add silver gelatine product to the mud to make it photosensitive.
This technique is not used in my work in general. I only developed it for this very specific research. However, I have a personal fascination with matter—the properties and meaning of materials—which extends my photo practice to sculpture or installation sometimes.