Eva Beazar

The room is empty. A cold glow of fluorescent light fills the space. Seated, he stares at his undone shoelaces. The sound of waves lapping on the shore. The soft scent of sunscreen. A gentle, calming warmth. He gazes at his reflection in the mirror, observing his face, with a faint, strained smile.

Voices, laughter, footsteps, someone singing off-key. Whose birthday it was, I no longer know. But it was a beautiful day. He freezes. His toes curl. He turns his head to the left. Someone familiar, or perhaps a stranger. Experiences, emotions, and memories—all unique, yet intertwined. Nothing else exists; this is everything.

A forest of ferns, the wind carrying traces of memories across the land. They shift, changing shape. An opening, in an empty, infinite space. Forgetting. A reverie leaves its mark on each form.

WAITING ROOM is a photo book that explores the creation of an experience of time. The flow of time is different for each person. In nature, we witness flowers bloom in spring, following the light; some open sooner, others later, depending on sunlight exposure. Yet we live under an imposed temporality, the time measured by the clock. This time is useful for schedules, for punctuality. But my aim is neither to explain time nor to define it. Instead, I propose to detach ourselves from the time we know (clock time) and enter a world of reveries, of suspended moments, of frozen instants. Sometimes illogical, absurd, sometimes blurred, sharp, or realistic. This temporal flux is profoundly fascinating to me.

We find ourselves in a waiting room, a place where time is elusive, impossible to record but there to be experienced—a spiral of emotions, thoughts, wanderings. The unconscious takes over, sometimes illogically. It is in this space that I like to conduct my research.

The first phase of the book was created during a residency at KAOS, where I wrote an absurd story of time based on this reflection. The short, fragmented stories draw inspiration from the ordinary things I encounter, observing the world slowly. The script/text was developed visually, with images and sketches interacting with this narrative. The texts read like images. Inspired by the materials produced, I then created staged images on 35 mm film.

With the material gathered over two to three years, I constructed a 72-page book sequence (including images and texts). The text is printed in white on a black background, referencing the black cinema screen. The book reads like a film. In the test version, images were printed on black paper with glossy white ink.

A black box, an endless waiting room, slightly ajar, illuminating images in white ink. Traces and memories emerge. These are pages to be turned, one by one.

Media:

Photographic book, Photographic images ,35mm, text, printed on black paper,72 pages.

En nu!?! – MYRIAM LOYENS, GALLERY Emergent , VEURNE, 2025