THE POOLS

Since 2010, I’ve started an unusual sort of travel diary: I found out that in évery place I go, there is an unexpected swimming pool, with an unexpected story.  

Now I have a ‘collection’ of pools in Iraq, Liberia, Bangladesh, Kenya, Colombia, Uganda, Burkina Faso, India, Jordania, Albania, Malawi, Benin, Lebanon, Portugal, Austria, Mozambique, Turkey, Ghana, France, Greece, Italy, Afghanistan, Thailand, Russia, Senegal, Albania, Austria, Spain and more.

Over the next 30 years, this series will continue to grow!

 
 

THE STORY BEHIND THE SWIMMING POOLS

My assignments for all kinds of various clients has taken me all over the world. In 2010, I started an unusual sort of travel diary, when I began taking images of swimming pools in the places I visited. I found out that in every place I go, there is an unexpected swimming pool. 

 

that for a swimming pool that will never be for them.

Rarely but sometimes I find pools where I don't feel a 'click'. In Cambodia, I walked around two pools but nothing special happened. There can be a big difference between 'nothing is happening' and 'nothing is happening'. It's difficult to explain what kind of feeling that is and what it is that I'm looking for. 

In winterly Chicago I found a pool on the roof of a Best Western Hotel. It was full of snow and very windy, but beautiful. Unfortunately the door to the terrace was locked, so I almost begged the receptionist for the key. He thought I was mad, and came with the pretext ‘that the key was missing’. I couldn't convince him and sadly I left Chicago without a photo of the pool. 

I don’t often swim in the pools. In some pools women are not allowed to swim and to be honest, I'm not a good swimmer too... I think what attracts me most is the peaceful blue color of the water, the colourful surroundings, and the joy of people who start to play again like they did in their childhood. No matter where you are in the world, life feels more easy in or around a pool.

That’s why, over the next thirty years, this series will continue to grow.

Even though the assignments mean I am in a rush most of the time, being around a swimming pool always gives me a feeling of rest. So in every country I like to ask my driver or translator where I can find the most interesting, funny or crazy pool of the area. They always look surprised because they think I want to swim. When I explain that I'm doing a project about swimming pools around the world, they start smiling and try to help me with finding a good spot.

Every pool has its own story. Sometimes a pool can be a symbol of a country’s history. In Liberia I stumbled upon one of the desolated pools of President Tolbert, who was killed in a coup d’etat in 1980. Fifty kilometers away I found the swimming pool of the brother of Charles Taylor, president till 2003. He is sentenced to 50 years in a prison in the UK for war crimes.

I found pools where the hoped-for tourists never came, or pools that were not needed anymore. Like the empty pool in the garden of a colonial English house in Coonor in India. The Indian family that is owning the house nowadays is not into swimming at all.

A pool can show inequality. In Bangladesh, construction workers worked on a new and flashy swimming pool on the 10th floor on their bare feet. One mistake and they’d fall 10 floors down. And all

 
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The world map

Green = Places where I found a ‘click’ with a pool. Red = Places where there was no ‘click’ with a pool. No color = Places to go in the next 30 years.