Traveling to the most isolated corners on earth, for Scarlett Hooft Graafland these austere surroundings become live actors in the highly choreographed performances that she stages there.

Whether it is the salt desert of Bolivia, the Canadian arctic, Madagascar, Socotra island or Vanuatu, Scarlett Hooft Graafland merges with the surroundings and its local culture. After weeks of preparation, working closely with inhabitants, Scarlett creates a scene, where local social issues take center stage, and the vast surreal landscape becomes the chorus of a classical tragicomedy that silently comments on the subject.

Scarlett Hooft Graafland’s photography calls out from the realm where reality is no longer reality. Using mise-en-scènes woven with contrasts, humour, and impeccable choreographies, the artist seamlessly transforms ordinary landscapes into astonishing “anomalies”…

The sense of humour, intimidation, timelessness and placelessness felt whilst looking at Scarlett Hooft Graafland’s work is rooted in her being a photographer, a sculptor, a choreographer and an explorer. Her works have been exhibited at various institutions, such as the New York Public Library, MOCCA Museum in Toronto, Huis Marseille Museum of Photography in Amsterdam, the MAC Museum in Lima, the Museum of Photography in Seoul and the Fotografiska, Stockholm. Scarlett Hooft Graafland’s works are part of collections such as the AMC, Dutch Embassy Dubai, Dutch Embassy Brussels, and Krug Champagne. She received a BFA from the Royal Academy of Art in the Hague and a MFA from Parsons School of Design, New York.

In March 2025, FLAT // LAND (Flatland Gallery, Amsterdam) will exhibit a selection of Scarlett Hooft Graafland’s works during the fourteenth edition of MIA Photo Fair, in Milan.

Text by Özge Akkaya

212 Magazine, Istanbul

Photographer Scarlett Hooft Graafland’s visual stories take place in remote parts of the planet. Amongst them are the desolate deserts of Oman, the endless beaches of Madagascar, the eerie trees of Socotra, the frozen tundra of the North Pole and the salt plains of Bolivia…

Indeed it is untouched, natural vistas that she finds in far-flung corners of the world that make Scarlett Hooft Graafland’s photographs so striking. However, her photographic marvel emerges a step beyond that. She adds a personal touch to the lyrical and, at times, intimidating splendour of nature, to ultimately create a timeless and placeless new world. The distinctive characteristic of the world is its ability to embrace both a strong sense of humour and the power of contrasts…

Scarlett Hooft Graafland never acts on her own accord during the creative process. She invariably collaborates with people from the cultures she encounters. ‘Local social issues take centre stage in my scenes, and the vast surreal landscape becomes the chorus of a classical tragicomedy that silently comments on its subject”, says the artist. It is a mammoth task, to take the local issues of a foreign culture in a completely different geography and convince the indigenous population to collaborate on working to create images that refer to these issues – and her job is that more painstaking in cultures she defines as ‘macho’.

To overcome this hurdle, the artist knows that she has to detach herself from the adjective ‘foreigner’. Travelling to a new place, Scarlett Hooft Graafland takes her time to fully adjust to the culture. Sometimes a few months, sometimes a year… Long enough to know the culture and get accepted by the locals. It goes without saying that there are risks involved, but Graafland is prepared to endure it all. She spent six months with the Inuit in Northern Canada –  however, her acceptance into the community only happened after she got caught in a terrible storm, with a group of seal hunters and waited to be rescued on a deserted island for several days. It was an incident which enabled her to be accepted into the community.

Women in burkas holding balloons, men covered in neon-pink veils, fishermen in their canoes with their knees sticking out  … these are the trophies of months of devotion. Scarlett Hooft Graafland might establish close connections with different cultures, but she does not get caught up in anthropological perspective. She has never been obsessed with reflecting reality as it really is. On the contrary, her work could be a form of ‘playing’ with reality – something that must stem from her background in sculpture.

Landscapes dotted with carefully positioned human figures bear undeniable traces of a sculptor’s perspective. Through the people in her photographs, Scarlett Hooft Graafland incorporate a surrealistic feeling into her images, using only an analogue camera, without any digital manipulation. The artist resorts to contrasts frequently. The women in burkas holding phallic balloons, on a white sandy beach lapped by turquoise waters( Burka Balloons) , must be the perfect example of her take on contrasts.

Speaking of the culture vs. nature conflict in her work, “I try to make these really large frames with a lot of sky, and a lot of horizon, so you have the feeling of freedom; but then the things I put in the centre do not always have that freedom, sometimes these people are captured in their culture or traditions. I like to play with that friction between culture and nature.”

The sense of humour, intimidation, timelessness and placelessness felt whilst looking at Scarlett Hooft Graafland’s work is rooted in her being a photographer, a sculptor, a choreographer and an explorer. The Dutch artist’s works have been exhibited at various institutions, such as the MOCCA Museum in Toronto, the Huis Marseille Museum of Photography in Amsterdam, the MAC Museum in Lima, the Museum of Photography in Seoul and the Fotografiska, Stockholm. Scarlett Hooft Graafland received a BFA from the Royal Academy of Art in the Hague and a MFA from Parsons School of Design, New York.