031 - Max Pinckers

Max Pinckers was born in Belgium in 1988 and grew up in Indonesia, India, Australia and Singapore. Although his dad was a photographer, he didn’t start shooting himself until 2006 when he returned to his native country to study documentary photography at the KASK school of art in Ghent, where he is currently a doctoral researcher. In 2015 he became a nominee of Magnum Photos. Not believing in the possibility of sheer objectivity or neutrality, Pinckers advocates a manifest subjective approach, which is made visible through the explicit use of theatrical lighting, stage directions or extras. Extensive research and diligent technical preparation are combined with improvisation to obtain lively, unexpected, critical, poetic and simultaneously documentary images. Since 2011 he has produced several documentary photo-series in Thailand, India, Japan and Kenya. Every series is turned into a carefully laid out book consisting of interwoven photographs, documents and texts.