Roderik Henderson
Roderik Henderson ('s-Hertogenbosch, 1965) studied at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten, Amsterdam. His work has been exhibited and published internationally, awarded first prize World Press Photo portraits/stories and first prize World Photography Awards portraits/fine art.
Most recently his project Pink Desert was nominated for the Somfy Photography Award/ Nederlands Fotomuseum, Rotterdam.
He lives and works in Chile and is co-founder of bunk.A.i.r. - a new, remote artist residency in Northern Chile.
Click here for the Exhibition Guide of PINK DESERT / Test Site I, 27.11.-2021 - 18.12.2021.
Craving silence, and hungry for tranquillity, my woman and I travelled the desert, 20 years ago, in search for absolute, sublime nothingness. Instead, I found myself creating a photographic inventory of traces of violent human activity in the desert: encountering Inter Continental Ballistic Missiles being launched in New Mexico, stumbling upon Nuclear bomb craters and “downwinder” communities (due to radioactive fallout from the Test Site) in Nevada.
Then, my wife got pregnant. Our daughter was born in a scorpion infested, improvised hut, with snakes crawling under her crib, in a semi ghost town in the Great Basin Desert, inhabited by a handful of heavily armed misfits, hermits, drunks, veterans, rednecks and hippies. My son was born in the frozen wilderness of Canada, in a place without tv, electricity or internet, with bears and cougars for neighbour’s. We are raising our kids in the Atacama in Chile, world’s driest desert, planting crops in bone dry earth, while building a home in earthquake country.
- Roderik Henderson
