Titus Simoens

11:00 am describes and shows the weekly appointments between Alfons and photographer Titus Simoens. Alfons is an 81-year-old man who lives in Ghent, close to the house of Simoens. From October 2017 till May 2018 Simoens visited Alfons every week at 11:00 am. They talked and told stories. Simoens wrote down Alfons’s stories and photographed him during his visits. Alfons decided to cook for Simoens every time he payed him a visit. It became their weekly ritual.

Next to writing down Alfons’s stories and collecting photographs, Simoens also questioned his position as a photographer and documenter. How the development proceeds of a project like this. How a story develops. How the photographer deals with the notion of ‘a story’ and how he portrays characters in that same story. What is objective and what is subjective? Under which condition is a story fiction and when a documentary approach is considered ?

11:00 am is a multi-layered project, that provokes the reader and viewer to question the meaning of a story. It discusses the position of a photographer when creating new work. It considers ones perception of another ones life, the continuous projection that people pursue when meeting someone new.