Horseday
Trees Heil is an artist from The Netherlands who focuses on photography and performance. Her methodology of creating stories has to do with constructing new situational contexts while reimagining people’s behavior and roles in a playful manner. This approach allows Trees to analyze the diversity in identities through staged performance acts transforming her subjects from the usual self to the new imaginary being. Trees graduated with a Bachelor's degree in Photography from the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague and finished a theater training program at Likeminds' Factory in Amsterdam.
With her project Horseday, Trees examines the possibility of a metamorphosis of a human into a horse. The project consists of images of her friends, neighbors, and family members. Human-like horses are created by means of emphasizing the shape and using elements that signify the horse and assist in creating a horse tail, for example. The viewer is invited to meet all kinds of horses in various locations: on the streets, in the park, in the studio, in the metro, or even at home. We discuss with Trees her way of bringing to light the new topic of research, the use of the mundane that is merged with undertones of absurdity created through performance techniques. Another theme that emerges with Trees' work is intimacy and the connection established between people or subjects in the frames. Trees speak about this work, “It can be so much fun with the body, and it’s free! In that way, you can almost say the body is like an attraction, where you can step into. I also see the body as an instrument, and I like to figure out all the things we can do with it.”
‘Most of the time, you just do things, and you don’t know what it will turn out like or what you meant by it beforehand.’
In the photography project Horseday, I play with the fluidity of identity by showing how human bodies can become horses. My work challenges the models to play horse for a day and, in doing so, step out of their role as humans. My work is quite absurd, but I often find daily life way stranger — how we treat animals, for example. In this work, I create, amongst other things, another perspective on what we can ride. In the pictures, you can see that models are riding each other, chairs, or fantasy creatures. I also discovered that humans and horses are already connected. Humans wear ponytails, can be dark horses, and, in Dutch, you can also be a luxury horse. With, amongst others, my friends, ex-boyfriend, neighbors, and daring teenagers, I created a horse world. The work provokes new behaviors, calls for intimacy, and shows how fantasy can enter reality.
The Horseday project can be viewed in many different ways. One way is that the horseday is an invitation to be an animal for a day and let go of reasoning. I think that reasoning is such an overrated thing. My works arise intuitively, and the ideas simply come to me. I don’t have to really think about what I want to make. If something comes up, then I don’t question myself directly about what I want to say with it. If I want to explore an idea that came to me, I do it. If the work is finished, I try to see it for what it is, and only then I will research it more and reflect on it. Most of the time, you just do things, and you don’t know what it will turn out like or what you meant by it beforehand. Oftentimes, I see afterwards that my work shows me my desires.
‘It can be so much fun with the body, and it’s free! In that way, you can almost say the body is like an attraction you can step into.’
Most of the time, I photograph my subject in the middle of the frame. Around that, you can see the context where they are located: in the city, in nature, or the studio. I like it when models are in the 'real world.' This way, my ideas can really take place in this world — it’s not just fantasy. Very often, this is also what I want to experience in real life — intimacy, playing with each other and especially each other’s bodies. It can be so much fun with the body, and it’s free! In that way, you can almost say the body is like an attraction you can step into. I also see the body as an instrument, and I like to figure out all the things we can do with it. In daily life, language is so leading. In my work, I find it way more interesting to investigate how we can relate to one another in a more physical way.
In the Horseday project, I broadened my choice of models a bit. Before, I would only photograph women of my age. Now I have also photographed older people. My neighbors, ex-boyfriend, students, and a couple of guys. This felt important to me for this series, to transform a whole universe of humans into horses. During the period that I made the series, I would walk through the city and see potential horses everywhere. It is very fun to look at people through that lens, like horses. It’s very endearing.
‘My scarf plus a bathrobe can already be a horsey costume, for example. The scarf becomes a tail, and the bathrobe really accentuates the horse’s ass!’
I like meeting new people. I have always been curious as to how people live and what moves them. In primary school, as a young child, I always wanted to play everywhere — not only at my best friends’ houses. I wanted to play at the homes of the boys who never really had girls over. I was curious as to how their house would look, what kind of things would be in their fridge, how they decorated their bedrooms, how they talked to their mother, and what the rules were. Today, I invite others to join me in my curiosity. I feel at ease creating intimate situations with my models. I think this is a nice way of being together. You talk with each other, create something new, and share ideas. I always get a lot of energy from this.
The styling for this project was done by me. It is a combination of my own clothing and what the models brought with them. Most of the time, we curated an outfit on the spot. I don’t have to think about it to see what’s right, and I immediately see a lot of possibilities with the clothes, also on how to use them in a different way. My scarf plus a bathrobe can already be a horsey costume, for example. The scarf becomes a tail, and the bathrobe really accentuates the horse’s ass! It’s simply looking at shape and color and how they interact with one another. I don’t really have a style when it comes to clothing, I just work with the elements that are there.
Besides clothes, I often work with plaster. I can put that on the legs of the model, and it resembles stockings. The beautiful thing about plaster is that it’s got this timeless feeling. Plaster also comes back in the presentations of my work, where I make picture frames out of the material as an extension of the work.
‘I made a picture of two sisters that formed a horse together. This was the second picture I took for the Horseday series. They were both naked, standing in a park, and the only thing I did was put a plaster on their legs.’
Sometimes I have an idea beforehand of what I want to make, and sometimes I don’t have anything; then, I let it fully unfold at the moment. Sometimes the models have ideas, and then we play with those. I work very spontaneously and intuitively.
When I was on vacation with friends, I thought it would be fun to take my camera with me. I kept seeing beautiful situations to take pictures of. We were in a restaurant having dinner when I saw a saddle, and then I asked my friends and one of their dads if we could do a little photoshoot after we were done eating. I don’t have a whole lot of pictures from this moment, and still, it worked out. This process varies a lot. Sometimes I will make a hundred pictures, and the last one is the best.
I think that there’s power in capturing a simple and clear image. Not too many props or elements, not wanting to put too many ideas into a picture beforehand. After all, the image will show a story in all its simplicity. That’s powerful enough to me. In this way, I made a picture of two sisters that formed a horse together. This was the second picture I took for the Horseday series. They were both naked, standing in a park, and the only thing I did was put a plaster on their legs. This was enough to make it into a powerful photo.
