“Why? Because I want it”

Imagine a dark room, high ceilings, a peculiar soft floor (the artist later explains it’s soil, carried indoors with wheelbarrows and stomped by thousands of feet). The spectators, silhouettes themselves, face a video projection which opens a world of archaic rhythms, vast horizons, and mystic stories: A poetic fable about humanity searching for stars that were replaced by satellites long ago. On the opposite wall, lightboxes display long-exposures of satellites piercing through the night sky.

And the sky – or should we call it the expanses of the universe? –is, what 25-year-old German artist and KABK Photography Graduate Jamal Ageli is indeed interested in. He showed his graduation work “Call Her The Morning Star” (2022) at The New Current, a multimedia exhibition with emerging talents during Rotterdam Art Week 2023.

Taking this as a starting point, we meet in a café, stroll Den Hague’s streets, and eventually end up in KABK’s cafeteria. As the prepared interview questions mostly remain in the backpack and the conversation evolves freely, the following passages shall serve as a glimpse into Jamal’s practice.

A: Astrophotography and Atmosphere

“Astrophotography is the perfect balance between technology and spirituality”, Jamal explains his current practice. During the past few years, the sky and celestial bodies have always been one of his main subjects. He describes that staying next to his camera during clear nights and waiting for long exposures has something magical to him. But Jamal doesn’t like his work being called “spiritual”. “My work should not exist in a category called spiritual. I mean: Who am I to tell you what’s spiritual? I cannot impose on others that they have a spiritual experience when encountering my work.”

“My way of working is about creating atmospheres, rather than stories”, he says. But how comes, that “Call Her The Morning Star” feels very much like a fairytale, even including a narrator? “Well”, Jamal explains: “I wouldn’t have said that sentence a year ago when doing the project. But now I realized that my way of working might be less about storytelling but more about creating experiences.”

“At the Academy, having the money for an expensive production seems to be taken as a given. But it’s not talked enough how to organise the financials means for your graduation project other then taking it from your private account”, Jamal says. Because he wanted to pursue his vision and knew that his installation and production plans are costly, he cared about funding early on. “In retrospect, I think my graduation project would not have been possible without receiving a project development grant by hessenfilm und Medien, the film support board of my province in Germany. This new media grant of 20,000 not only helped me to realize my production and a more complex installation for the work but also enabled me to invest in my business and important pieces of equipment which benefit my practice today.”

Jamal applied for the grant before he started into the fourth year as he already spent a lot of thoughts on his graduation project during covid and his internship. He even used the commission during the graduation year as an experimental field. While doing a shooting for Jack Wolfskin, he tested the concept of groups of humans in nocturnal landscapes, which reoccurre in the final video.

E: Exhibition and all the “whys”

“As an artist, you are always asked <why are you doing this?>, especially during academic education. Always why, why, why. Now, I answer: Because I want it. Because I like it. I always wanted a room full of soil and photographs in lightboxes, so I did it for my graduation project and again at Art Week Rotterdam.” The New Current scouted the project already at the Graduation Show and Jamal, next to having received three awards for it, has the chance of exhibiting his project in another two exhibitions.

I: Instagramable

Very differently to the Graduation Show at KABK, in The New Current Jamal stayed mostly invisible as the artist. “It was a fascinating experience to stay in the dark room and listen anonymously to all the viewer’s discussions.” And interestingly, his photographic installation became a highly requested subject for people just dropping in for taking an “instagramable” picture of it. How to deal with the fact, that some spectators obviously do not deal with the complexity of the work? “I neither find it good nor bad when spectators solely enjoy a work visually. But it tells a lot about the way art is perceived nowadays. However, of course, if art is only about Instagram, we all lose.”

P: Pressure on the creative output

“After my graduation, I was drained, I needed a break. Still for the next months, I am deliberately not creating new autonomous work. Although I’m in contact with curators and collectors that perhaps want to see me putting things into the world. There is this certain expectation of the world to <keep delivering>. But I want to take the freedom not to do it for now, although I keep new ideas for myself at this point. For now, I prefer commissions or rather applied photography, because you are not tempted to do research for years as you have to respect your deadlines and the fast pace of projects.”

T: Travelling aka how to schedule meetings

Currently, Jamal works on commissions for global brands and collaborates closely with photographer Ari Versluis, a lecturer at KABK. That we were able to meet in Den Hague is mere luck: Few days before, Jamal was in LA, the next day he goes to London for commissions. Being born in Germany, he is now based “almost anywhere in Europe.” He wouldn’t want to live like this forever, he says. “For now, I love my life. I know, some people almost hate if you say that. But it is true.” However, as he says, his grandmother still calls him every day to check in with him.

W: World outside KABK (which exists)

As Jamal already worked as a photographer before graduating, stepping into the world outside of the academy felt “seamless” for him. Nevertheless, now there is a lot more administration to do when running his own business. And, a question that many former KABK students face: Where to settle? “After living this <international life> at KABK for four years, I need to decide. Shall I center my life back home in Germany? Or stay in the Netherlands? I still don’t know and that’s okay.”

Graduates and Student at Rotterdam Art

"You are light and cabbage"

KATARINA JURIČIĆ, ALUMNI

"Have fun :)"