I was born and raised in IJmuiden, the Netherlands, where I continue to live today. The steel industry is not an abstract subject to me; it is part of the environment that shaped me. For generations it has defined work, knowledge and identity in this region. Tata Steel IJmuiden is deeply embedded in the economic and cultural fabric of the region, while also standing at the centre of environmental debates, regulatory pressure and sustained media scrutiny. That tension does not form the argument of this work, but the atmosphere in which it takes shape.

I do not approach this landscape as an outsider forming an opinion from a distance, but as someone working within the same social and physical environment in which these discussions take place. My interest lies not in explaining industry, but in observing and photographing it from within.

The site is largely closed off from public view. Behind fences and security zones lies an environment defined by infrastructure, heat, sound and controlled movement. Through the Fire stems from the desire to make this environment visible from within, not as exposure, but as a spatial experience. The project is a long-term photographic exploration of an industrial world that revealss itself in fragments. Production unfolds through corridors, platforms, conveyor lines and furnace halls. Movement determines what becomes visible. Light shifts between artificial glare and haze. Fire, steam and dust interrupt any sense of overview.

Human presence runs throughout the project. Sometimes people appear as small figures moving through vast industrial spaces; at other times they emerge through direct encounters and portraits. Together, these images explore the relationship between people and the environments they build, maintain and navigate. Rather than illustrating industrial production, the photographs seek to reveal the rhythm, scale and atmosphere of a world that is rarely seen from within.

Rather than following a linear narrative, the photographs gradually construct a fragmented portrait of an industrial world. They invite the viewer to experience the site as it reveals itself: step by step, fragment by fragment, never offering a complete overview.

Through the Fire is an independent, long-term photographic project, developed autonomously and carried out with permission to access the site.