Milou Abel
Autumn 2012
Photographer Milou Abel worked and lived at The Fifth Season during the autumn season of 2012. During her residency at The Fifth Season, she worked with a group of patients that suffer from eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. For ´A new interior´ Abel focused on aspects that connect the lives of the women and girls. She built a photographic installation utilizing photographs and drawings made by the patients. Abel was attracted to the challenge of exploring how the medium of photography could be used for a group of people for whom representation of themselves is a sensitive issue.
Milou Abel has worked in close cooperation with people with mental health problems before in her projects. Her book "I'm yours" (www.vimeo.com/35219564), produced in 2011, is about a woman who suffers from psychoses. Earlier in 2012 she portrayed shy people with whom she worked through the Dutch Vereniging van Verlegen Mensen (Association of Shy People).
Milou Abel graduated in 2011 from the department of photography at the Utrecht School of the Arts (HKU). In 2011 she was nominated for the Dutch Doc Award. In 2011 she won first prize of the Dummy Award at the Photobook Festival in Kassel.
