Annabel Hesselink is a Dutch artist whose long-term, research-based work often delves into the boundaries between knowledge and imagination, between history and wonder, and between collective memory and absurd fantasy. The works that result from these interests are usually presented as videos, photographs, and installations, and as combinations of these.
Annabel’s video piece Lunar Gravity Test #2 (2014) was presented at Scissor — the event series for durational and time-based art that we organise and curate — in March 2015. Annabel’s piece is part of a larger body of work, Moon in Progress, about representations of the moon.
After showing the video piece at Scissor, we interviewed Annabel about her work.

So maybe we could start by asking: how did you end up creating work based around this image of the moon? What did you find so interesting about this image?
Well, it started during the research for my previous project, the Kongopapieren, which was a process of artistic research into the colonial history of Belgium and the Congo.

Part of what interested me about this were the stories that I constantly found when I was reading about this colonial history. What interested me was the very unrealness of the stories — the stories were unbelievable.
I captured the places where the stories happened with a certain distance, like a scientist with a technical camera. This made the places undefinable and mysterious. I placed text underneath the images; short factual information telling the unreal story. Combining the unreal factual story with the mysterious image, I wanted to incite doubt about the image. I wanted to provoke questions about the medium of photography itself, its inability to tell stories and stimulate reflection on the representation of history.
Through wonder I wanted to provoke doubt and questions, but the ‘wondrousness’ of the stories was overshadowed by the darkness of the colonial history. So when at one point in this project, I formulated that my research was about the representation of the Congo in Belgium, I thought my next project should be absurdly ‘zoomed out’ to create the lightness I missed in the project. It was then that I got the idea to research ‘the representation of the moon on earth’.
But the project really started during my Master’s studies that I started one year later, because we made a study trip to Tunisia, and I thought “what the hell am I going to do in Tunisia? I’m researching the moon!” [laughs] So, I had the thought that I just want to go out into the desert, because it feels like being on the moon. It was the first time that I worked with video there, and I thought ah, I can ask these people and record them talking about how they experienced the first landing on the moon.
Which people? The Tunisian people in the desert?
Yes. In the desert. I travelled as far away as possible into the desert, and I started to interview people about the landing on the moon, and to also ask them about what it might look like to stand on the moon.
These interviews became very important to me, throughout this project. After Tunisia, I went to Lanzarote, because of the lunar landscape there, and I also asked people to interview for me. Eventually, I made a standard list of questions. And through these interviews, I actually got some consistent answers.
On the one hand, people would say “the moon is just a grey, dead surface. There’s nothing there. It’s not very interesting.” And at the same time, in the same answer, people would say “ah, it’s a very magical thing, the moon, when you see it from here. There’s this magical light!”
I found this duality very interesting. In my work I’m doing a similar thing — I’m trying to define and capture what the wonder of the moon is, this magical thing, but at the same time I’m trying to evoke wonder as well.
It seems like the Congo project was very much rooted in history and a social situation, and that the moon project is almost like a reaction against that, in the opposite direction. Would that be a fair way to think about it?
How do you mean by opposite direction?
Well, the moon is almost as abstract as you can get, as a subject. Whereas something like the history of Belgium in the Congo is something that’s very much rooted in the human experience of millions of people in a concrete historical situation.
Mm-hmm, yes. It’s true that for me it had to do with the heaviness of the history of the Congo, and the lightness of a more abstract project. Although, in the end, the Congo project was also about imagination, and trying to imagine things that are unimaginable. So there are some similarities — the Congo project became more abstract over time.
When did you start using the balloon? Was that always there from the beginning? Or did it develop over time?
Well, after my graduation, I was in the United States. I went to the United States — basically to be with my boyfriend, because he went to work in San Francisco. And the weather balloons that I used, you can only buy them in America. They only make them in America and China, and it’s very difficult to find them in Europe. So when I was there, I immediately ordered five balloons, because I thought that they would break easily. So I still have a few. And I started to experiment.

Before that, you did the big snowball video. Was that the beginning of the moon research?
No, the beginning of the moon research was in the first week of my masters study. Before I began the masters degree, I thought that making a picture, or making a work, should have a reason behind it. I was researching a lot, and then after a lot of research I would come to one image. I could go to a specific spot and take a picture there, and then there would be a reason for that image to exist. But that made me completely stuck. I didn’t create many images through this long process.
In the first week of study, my teachers asked me: “ok, so what do you want to do? What do you want to finish next week?” And I said, “what? Next week? No! I don’t have a… well, yeah, I want to build this moon, but I don’t have a reason to do that yet. So why should I do that?” So they said that I should just build it and see what happens.

So, actually that was when I bought my first balloon — I used it to create this papier-mâché moon. But, because I was a bit slow in building it, it started to collapse. The balloon started to shrink, and then I tried to blow up the balloon again but it completely exploded — or imploded, maybe — so I hadn’t even finished my moon model and it was already collapsing. So I made this slide series in which I basically climb inside the moon and raise it up again from the inside.
And then that January, there was a lot of snow in the Netherlands, so I started to make these big snowballs — and that led to the snowball video.
When you started with all this, did you have the intention at the beginning to make photos? Or video? Or any particular media?
Well, for the papier-mâché ball, I thought that I would make a nice model, and then cut it up and bring it outside, and photograph it in different places. But then, in the end, I photographed the collapse, and the failure, instead. This wasn’t really planned, obviously, but I had my nice camera there, so I did it. However, the other actions were really made in front of the camera.
In order to create photos?
Actually mostly video works.
Ok. I’m curious, then — because you studied photography. So, was there a moment where you thought to yourself “ok, now I’m switching to video”?
Well, that really started with these Tunisian interviews. In a way, I discovered video with these interviews. I had never wanted to start using video before then, because I thought it was a too-easy way to get out of the problem of photography — the problem that it’s very difficult to take pictures nowadays, that there are so many images, and everything is already done.
But I wanted to interview these people. And I wanted to film them, I wanted to record them. So I started to use video. And then it was so much fun that I couldn’t stop. I just started with more and more video actions.
It’s interesting that what we are doing with the Scissor series of events is based around time, and around durational processes — and when you make a decision like the one to switch from still photography to video, the element that you’re introducing, in a way, is time. Was anything like this on your mind? Or did you just start using the medium of video and followed where it led you?
I suppose I just started, but actually I’m using film and video, in a sense, as a still photographer. I put the camera somewhere and something plays out in front of it. The time that it takes to record is the time that a viewer will see. So in this sense, I use time.
Jeff Wall often talks about how he takes photos cinematographically, like as if he was making a film. He’s creating a film with only one frame. And it seems like you’re almost doing the opposite of that — you’re making a photo, a single image, but it exists in the form of a video, and changes over time.
Yes. And earlier this year, when there was the solar eclipse, I was in the city of Linz, and I had this idea to do exactly that, but to film places in the city. But I didn’t realise that the eclipse was almost two hours long. So now I have one-and-a-half hours of video which is like a still image, where basically the only thing happening, apart from people walking in front, is that the light changes just a little bit. But here, time becomes a problem: because it’s one-and-a-half hours long, you don’t really see the change of light. I was interested in how the moon would create a shadow over the city. But it’s a very, very… slow shadow. So, I’m not sure what to do with it now.
Did you have a particular plan for what to try to do during the eclipse? Other than just to try to record something of it?
No, I didn’t even realise it was happening until a couple of days before! I read about it and thought “Oh no! I have to try to do something with it! It’s the moon!” [laughs]
But it also combined with this other idea — at the same time I was reading about the history of Linz. The history is quite dark. Most obviously, Hitler was born and raised here. So there is this shadow of history here, and I took this darkness of the eclipse, and tried to record this actual shadow over the city.
I don’t really mind that the video is so long. I have another long video, of a tent —
The one where the balloon is inflating inside it?
— yes. So the triangle of the tent is slowly turning into a circle. But it’s about fifteen minutes long. So the shape is changing really really slowly. And at this exhibition in Berlin, I had three phones next to each other — so, three small screens — each with a different action being shown. And one of them was this tent, and a lot of people thought that it was a still image, because the action was happening so slowly. They were just walking on by. The average time that people will look at an artwork is something like three seconds, so some people were just seeing it and thinking “oh, it’s photo of a big balloon.”



Yeah, it’s funny how that happens. We have this piece that we’ve been working on, which is a video which slowly changes from daytime to nighttime. So, of course, if somebody looks at the video for just a few seconds, there’s not really much to see. It almost needs them to walk away and come back. It seems like you’re dealing with a similar kind of process, which requires the investment of time.
Yep. That’s why the videos are really made to be exhibited. To be in a space where people can walk around and then pass by again, and realise that something is changing.
Yes — they’re not movies. They’re — I don’t know what to call them exactly — they’re slowly-changing images.
Yes.
Do you have future moon plans? [laughs]
Not really! I’m thinking about new topics. The moon is becoming a bit too easy for me now, so I’m moving on to other things. But it’s quite difficult, because I’ve been working on the moon for the last two years or so. So, I have a couple of ideas that I’m still working out how to do — some actions that I want to make. But it’s still quite vague.
So it’s the beginning of a new body of work?
Yes.
With any particular focus? Any keywords?
I’m thinking about two things: one is the holy grail. [laughs] Because it makes me wonder. It makes me very curious, and that’s what’s needed. It has the same combination of history and mythical mystery — another combination of fiction and facts.
The other thing I want to do is with a group. To give them an assignment and see what happens. Something without any purpose — people will be very busy, but there’s no outcome. I really like this idea of the MacGuffin — that there’s something very important, and people are very busy, but what that thing is, exactly, is not known. I like these absurd, nonsensical actions.
It seems a little bit like as if your balloon is your MacGuffin. You’re very busy with this task of doing something with the balloon, and people react in different ways. There’s one action you did where you had the balloon in the corner of a bar. It seems a little bit like a one-person MacGuffin that everyone else is trying to ignore.
Yes! That was really amazing. I was in Portugal at a residency, and below where the residency was happening, there was a bar with these old guys. And every time when I would look in there, curiously, they would stare back, like they were thinking “Hey, a woman!” [laughs] So I was always very intimidated. And then I was thinking, ok, I want to do something with this balloon, I want to blow it up somewhere, and I immediately thought of this bar, because I would never normally go inside. So I had to try it.
And the old guys were amazing! We asked them, and they were really happy that we wanted to do something. And… then they completely ignored it! They completely ignored this balloon! Which was perfect, because you just see them sitting in a bar, and at one point the balloon starts pressing on the back of one of the guys by the bar, and he’s just sitting, eating his food and being pressed a little bit, ignoring it. They were fantastic.
The woman that was organising the residency spoke Portuguese, so I asked her to talk with them about the moon. So while the balloon is blowing up, they are talking about the moon. Their memories and thoughts. And at one point, near the end, one of the guys actually started to sing an old song about the moon.
When you put work online, do you have the full work online, generally? Or do you try to keep that for these exhibition situations where people have the experience of being present with the piece in a room?
Yes, it depends. Some works I put completely online. Others not.
So no strict rule about it.
Yes. I’m still a bit doubtful about putting things online. On the one hand people can just download and take the videos. On the other, it’s good that people can see my work. In a way it’s maybe more valuable that people can see the work online than that it would be shown somewhere in an exhibition.
Ok, we were meant to finish by asking about your upcoming plans, but we actually did that already… [laughs]
Great!
So, thanks for talking everything through with us, and see you again back in Berlin some time soon.
Yes, looking forward to it!
Make sure to take a look through Annabel’s work on Vimeo.