"Only by wandering do you get to know a city, a country, a continent."

Over the last three years, wandering aimlessly, by car and also on foot, press photographer Michiel Hendryckx (° 1951, Adinkerke) undertook a lonely trip through Europe. The final destination was an exhibition in the FotoMuseum and a photo book, published by Lannoo Publishers. The trip went through Italy, Greece, Romania, Slovakia, Poland, Norway, Ireland, England, Scotland, Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium, France, Spain, Portugal, Vatican City, Switzerland and Austria. Not an inventory of countries and landscapes, but a meandering and sometimes surprising route. 

For Hendryckx the trip mainly meant revitalisation. A conscious return to first amazement, to the beginner’s unprejudiced openness. Taking photographs in complete freedom, without a commission or a client. The photographer in search of the essence of his know-how, of the sharpness of his view. That is why the images show boyish curiosity and feature an almost naive and therefore also captivating simplicity.

Aimless wandering, from a romantic desire to get lost and to be able to observe anonymously. Europe, because that is the continent in which Michiel Hendryckx feels at home and where the cultural heritage he carries with him is still manifestly present everywhere, in all its variations.

The last trip of this quest started in March, in Italy, since that is where the first light of spring emerges, and because light is so important in the work of Michiel Hendryckx. In addition, this is the area from which the roots of our culture penetrated Western Europe from Greece. Hendryckx allowed himself four weeks for a trip from south to north. Especially Southern Italy deeply impressed him. The streets there are governed by a feeling of chaos and fear.

After Italy Hendryckx spent some time in England. In one of his letters home he testified: "It was difficult to work. Here people live with a collective privacy phobia. Cameras are everywhere, everything is screened constantly. (…) And yet I took some of my best pictures here. I got nearest to what is the ultimate for me. They are not spectacular photographs. Many viewers will pass by them without taking notice.” More than anywhere else, people’s distrust forced him to practice becoming invisible.

From England the trip continued by freighter to Norway, where Michiel Hendryckx was able to stay in an artist’s colony for a few weeks. "The site is unique and of a dazzling beauty. From my window I see a snow-capped mountain and part of a fjord. And no tourists anywhere. That is what heaven must be like, so beautiful that it will soon become boring. In the long term. I also had that feeling in Scotland.”

From this most northern part of Europe Hendryckx returned to Belgium via a very winding road. In his luggage: a rich harvest of images that subsequently had to be weighed up, scrutinised and selected. With this work Hendryckx, as it were, returns to the source, to the beginning of his career. For years he worked for the newspaper, at that time still in black and white. What used to be self-evident or even necessary was now a free and conscious choice. A large part of these pictures was made with a 50-mm objective, also called a standard objective, because its angle of view virtually corresponds to that of the eye. In other words: the photographer does not interfere, but is watching. The camera does not distort. Therefore in these images the world emerges as unusually clear and legible, graphically stilled. By the way, modernism was never Michiel Hendryckx’s dada. Without hesitation he still calls Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Frank his great examples. With his images he does not impose a vision on the audience, but testifies to the continual amazement with which he looks at the people and things that cross his path.

The book ‘Dolen. Onderweg in Europa’ [Wandering. Travelling in Europe], published by Lannoo publishers, is on sale in the museum shop for 45 euros.

I'm 22 and visiting Paris for the first time. I find a cheap hotel room near the Bastille. For a week I wander aimlessly around the French capital. I hardly visit any of the sights. That's for later.

The only way to really get to know a city, a country or a continent is to wander around it.

Just as I first saw Paris, so I discovered Europe. Roaming around endlessly in a car, on a motorbike or on foot. In 1991 I walked from Ghent to Mount Olympus in Greece. I saw the war in the Balkans during my walk.

Thanks to the Antwerp FotoMuseum and the publishers Lannoo, my European rambles have now become a photo project. All of the photos were taken specially for this project and have never been exhibited anywhere else. They are everyday images of Europe on the road. Calm and unsensational. Showing what is going on in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and how pleasant the scenery is between Châteauroux and Issoudun.

Besides these random images, I also visited 'sacred' places that help us to understand our past. I travelled back to places I had visited before and which remained in my memory as reference points. Oradour-sur-Glane, Chartres, Birkenau, the Loire ...

"Onderweg in Europa" is an intimate record of a long journey.

Michiel Hendryckx