Hotshoe Gallery

10 January – 4 February 2012
Private View: Thursday 12 January 2011, 6.30 – 9pm

Hotshoe Gallery are pleased to play host to an exhibition of Suzan van de Roemer’s photographic series The Power of Resilience at Hotshoe Gallery, London.

New Year’s Eve 2001. In a small cafe in a village somewhere in the Netherlands, a huge fire breaks out, taking 14 lives and maiming 180 others. All the victims  are young – on average between 14 and 18. ‘How can you embrace life again after such a tragic event?’ is the question that continued to fascinate Suzan van de Roemer, visual artist and photographer. Her innate curiosity resulted in an art project lasting several years, during which she followed a number of young people involved.

Suzan’s art project provides faces and stories to the statistics, making it almost impossible for us to forget the individuals affected. Ultimately, The Power of Resilience is about great universal themes like ‘power, persistence and love’, the strong appeal of life, and the fact that life’s forces are more powerful than one can ever imagine. Themes (and emotions) everyone can identify with. The Power of Resilience is about us all. Suzan van de Roemer (Amsterdam, 1968) graduated from the Academie voor Fotografie in Haarlem in 1994. Since graduating she has been working as a freelance photographer for various publications such as Marie Claire, Quote, AD magazine and Viva, as well as advertising agencies. Suzan van de Roemer has also been awarded a PANL award in 2005.

Her first major solo exhibition Grrls in Portret took place at the Melkweg Galerie in 1998. Her photographs also have been exhibited at the Noorderlicht Photofestival in Groningen in 1999 as well as in the Open-air Museum in Arnhem in 2001.

The first exhibition of De Kracht van Volendam (The Power of Resilience) was held in January 2004 in the Melkweg Galerie, Amsterdam. In 2010 the second installment of the exhibition De kracht van Volendam – 10 jaar later (The Power of Resilience – 10 years later) took place, also at the Melkweg Gallery.

Suzan van de Roemer’s The Power of Resilience is published by Schilt Publishing, and distributed by Thames & Hudson. ISBN: 978-90-53307-427. Retail price: £23.

For press enquiries please contact Anna Pfab: anna@schiltpublishing.com, +44 (0) 7794 347 633.