Madelon van Vredendaal
Photography
Wdka Willem De Kooning Academy
Specialisms: Photography
Location: Utrecht, Netherlands
Madelon van Vredendaal
First Name: Madelon
Last Name: van Vredendaal
Specialisms: Photography
Sectors:
My Location: Utrecht, Netherlands
University / College: Wdka Willem De Kooning Academy
Course / Program Title: Photography
About
From an early age, I felt a profound connection to nature and to life itself. As a child, I briefly explored this feeling through religion, but ultimately I realized it was not my path. In time, I also became aware of the harm being done to the things I felt so much love for, which led me to activism and feminist thinking. My engagement with intersectional feminist theory shaped the critical perspective I carry today, one that questions what is often presented as natural or inevitable.
Over time, I realized that the two main forces within me, a spiritual connection and a strong sense of justice, are not opposites, but deeply interdependent. I found photography as the medium and the space where these feelings meet, allowing me to reflect reality, question collective beliefs about truth, and imagine possibilities beyond the limits of what we have been taught. In this way, my work becomes both a reflection and a reinterpretation of reality, of the world around us and within ourselves.
Inspired by the critical, political roots of surrealism and the concept of aesthetic justice, I work with experimental, in camera techniques and avoid digital manipulation. The meaning of my work unfolds within the photographic process itself, resulting in images that are dreamy yet evocative, with a strong sensitivity to color and composition.
My work is grounded in my belief that ''To change the world, we must first imagine the world we long for. By imagining connection, we create it. And what we learn to love, we fight to protect.
The Rebirth of Eve is a photographic exploration of an alternative creation story. Challenging the masculine and linear narrative of Adam and Eve, in which woman is presented as derived from man and humanity is placed above nature, I question the hierarchies this myth has helped naturalize. Drawing on biology, genetics, and evolutionary science, I developed a symbolic creation myth rooted in the biological reality of our origins, where the feminine becomes a fundamental force within cycles of creation, transience, and rebirth. Through encounters with midwives, scientists, philosophers, and non-human life, photography became a way to reconsider our origins, our place within the living world, and the possibility of another future.
Competitions
