I am working on my project Accidental Images [Perongelukkige Foto's] since 2017. At the time I accidentally took a picture with my phone without intending to. This resulted in a picture of nothing in particular except a pretty blur. Usually I deleted such ‘failed’ pictures, but this time I appreciated the aesthetic qualities of the image and kept it.

 

From that moment on I noticed how accidental pictures were (and had been) appearing on my phone’s film roll every now and then. I started wondering about their traits and value. Why did they seem worth less (storage space) to me than pictures that came about from an act of intent? How were they different from pictures that represented something I wanted them to represent, in a material way? Were they really useless and worthless and if so, why? What were they ‘failing’ to be or do? And why were they there regardless?

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No matter how hard we try to dismantle the unintentional, it always shows up again. Along with it comes potential for change. What if, before we decide what to do with something we did not incite, we would actually look at it and see if for what it is? Is it really best to keep the unintentional safely nooked up in a margin of error? What would happen if we allowed the unintentional to fully manifest in our daily lives? Or even: what if we were to invite and engage with it?