Page 66 - Rotterdam. Make It Happen

“I AM NOT REALLY PART OF THESE WORLDS MYSELF, BUT I OBSERVE, EXPERIENCE, SMELL, LISTEN AND LOOK AS A PHOTOGRAPHER AND FILMMAKER.”
Stacii has a passion for people and their iden- tity; for unorthodox groups of people such as gangs in neighbourhoods, backstreets and su- burbs in particular, also in Rotterdam: ‘I like to look beyond the ‘gang’ label. I see the boys behind their face coverings, and their fami- lies. I try to dispel the stereotypical imaging of groups, and also of Rotterdam as a city. After all, Rotterdam is much more than just the Erasmus Bridge, Sparta or Feyenoord. I stop at all those doors that people often pass by. For example, I made a photograph of children in the tenement staircase at the oude Kaap’. This photograph won him the award ‘Power of Rotterdam’ in 2016.
DUTCH PHOTOGRAPHY MUSEUM.
Stacii: ‘Rotterdam is my best friend, my edu- cator. The city has taught me respect, honesty, sincerity and character, and it still does’. From his early childhood, Stacii has tried to fathom group identities and the social cohesion of groups in Rotterdam-East. Through the years, he has collected the stories of groups around him, documenting life in his neighbourhood community, especially that of Moluccans, as
well as Javanese and Javanese-Surinamese re- sidents. His early work attracted the attention of Rotterdam documentary photographer Kees Spruijt, and as a result of this contact, in 2011 he was given an opportunity to exhibit his work about Moluccans in the Netherlands in the Dutch Photography Museum in Rotterdam: ‘I still consider Kees to be my mentor’.
VISUAL ANTHROPOLOGIST.
Stacii is sometimes typified as a visual anthro- pologist. His life’s work, on which he works continuously, is therefore quite aptly called ‘Societies’, and deals with contemporary worlds within worlds, but with Stacii himself as well: ‘I am not really part of these worlds myself, but I observe, experience, smell, listen and look as a photographer and filmmaker. That is how I explore the way people watch over their identity’.
Stacii captures images of societies in va- rious parts of the world without bias or pre- judice. Over the years, he has met more than 3,000 people, capturing their ima- ges. What are his most poignant recol-
lections? Stacii: ‘The advent of gangs in Los Angeles and a little boy standing on a rooftop looking out over a Nairobi slum’.
FILLING HISTORY BOOKS HONESTLY.
Meanwhile, Stacii has become an internatio- nally renowned photographer and filmmaker. These days, his gallery on the Noordplein in Rotterdam is a venue where different worlds come together and where any chance visitor can simply be themselves. It is Stacii’s ambiti- on to be the first Dutchman, and more particu- larly the first Rotterdammer, to become a mem- ber of the leading Magnum photographers’ collective, founded in 1947 by photographers Robert Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson, George Rodger and David Seymour. The independent reporting of world events and people by the members of the collective appeals to Stacii: ‘This is the way in which I and my contempora- ries can fill the history books honestly. Through a Magnum membership I can also show that dreams do come true, that you can come up from nothing, and that you really matter’.
Discover Stacii’s Societies
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ROTTERDAM. MAKE IT HAPPEN.