I have tried to dissolve into the soul of the world for as long as I can remember.

When I was a kid, it was religion that gave me that experience. No one else in the family went to church, so every Sunday I got up on my own and took my bicycle to church. I also told my parents that my running practice started an hour before it actually started, so I could run through the woods on my barefeet, alone, and feel totally connected with everything around me. I remember feeling that when I took a deep breath, it would go in through my lungs but go out via the surrounding trees. I felt like the whole world was one living, breathing organism.

When I lost my faith in religion and labeled my childhood experience of the world as one as 'childish fantasy', around the age of 12, I started looking for substitutes. For a few years I could find nothing that came close to the experience I had in church or in the woods. Then, with discovering sexuality, I discovered that, instead of feeling that I dissolved into this soul of the world, I could dissolve into someone else. I also found that through mediation I could dissolve into myself, and with more practice, even come close to that wholeness and oneness I experienced as a kid.

That's why I want to submit a series of pictures about my search for this oneness for the Anima Mundi exhibition, titled 1001 nights in objects.

Sometimes I leave home in the middle of the night and walk around, searching for something or someone that triggers, amazes, shocks or seduces me. During these nights I follow this longing and it makes me end up in strange situations. I always have my phone with me when I go out at night, and I started to record these nights by taking a picture of an object I encountered. One object for each night, eventually they will tell the story of the 1001 nights I spent outside in the streets.

Because they're objects, they're innocent and impartial. The fact that they are at times merely visible, puts the focus on the color of the night. There are nights in the Netherlands, were I live, but also in other parts of the world, when I was on vacation or abroad for other reasons. There are midnight-pictures, pictures of the early morning just before the sun comes up, pictures made when the night just started etc.

When I am out at night, and everything is silent and the colors and people and buildings just melt together because of the absence of light, I feel myself getting sucked into this darkness and becoming a part of all the colors, people and buildings. As if the borders that seperate my body from the outside world dissapear.