Photography in abundance

Dutch artist Erik Kessels has printed out and placed one million photographs from Flickr in a room for his unusual installation Photography in Abundance.

He created the mountain of pictures to illustrate how many we share over the internet in only 24 hours.The million uploads are a mere drop in the ocean compared to the estimated total of 6billion images on Flickr, which is the same suspected number added to Facebook every two months.

‘We’re exposed to an overload of images nowadays," The Dutchman explained. "This glut is in large part the result of image-sharing sites like Flickr, networking sites like Facebook and picture-based search engines. Their content mingles public and private, with the very personal being openly and not self-consciously displayed. By printing all the images uploaded in a 24-hour period, I visualise the feeling of drowning in representations of other people’s experiences."

The Photography In Abundance installation is part of the What’s Next display at Foam Amsterdam throughout November 2011.

To read more about Kessels Installation or to see more of the Foam photography visit Metro Online or Foam.