All About Photo is pleased to present 'It Matters' by Jan Janssen, on view throughout May 2025.

IT MATTERS

'It Matters' or 'Pieces of Europe' is a long-term photography project, started in 2016. In this series, I show the moments I recognise in my fellow human beings. Things that are common to our human existence, such as love, play, growing up, loss and need for contact. Things that are present everywhere in the world, in anyone.

Several times a year, I travel to destinations in Central and Eastern Europe. For these photos, I travelled to Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia, among others.

Once arrived in the country, I work together with the locals to find entry into these communities. I find it very important that I approach them as an equal, and not as a western outsider just using them to take a photo. I build a bond with my portrayed people by following them for weeks, sometimes months. I may return regularly after my visit or stay in touch with my portraits online or remotely. Through this long-term contact, I get to know their traits and discover when they are at their most beautiful, their most vulnerable or their purest. It is at these moments that the most beautiful photos are created.

The series is growing and will culminate in a book of the same name in 2026.

Travelling is inseparable from my practice. It is an opportunity to discover who I am. By travelling to other places, I seek precisely the things we have in common. It is also a way for me to remind myself of the gratitude of a simple existence in places elsewhere in the world: things I take for granted in the West.

Jan Janssen - It Matters
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