From St. Joost student to exhibiting artist: Ties van de Water at BredaPhoto 2026

Ties initially had the idea of studying cinematography. To start training his eye for visual art, he decided to begin with photography. “And I actually never got any further than photography,” he says with a laugh.

His interest in imagery developed even earlier. “I always watched lots of different films with my father. That’s where the idea of becoming a cinematographer came from. I realised that, to become a cinematographer, you need an entire crew. What if I started taking photographs so that I could train my eye?” That choice ultimately led to a new love: photography. “I decided to start taking photographs and, actually, a new love was born. A love for photography. I immersed myself in it completely, and that’s what I do now.”

BredaPhoto is no unfamiliar festival to Ties. As a student at St. Joost School of Art & Design, he got to know it early on. “I started my course in 2020 and right at the beginning of the academic year, we were asked to study three works from the BredaPhoto Festival. That’s how I first came into contact with it.”

BredaPhoto continued to feature in his studies after that. “For every subsequent edition of BredaPhoto, we as students at St. Joost were given the opportunity to take part in the International Talent Programme. In 2022 and 2024, I didn’t yet feel the need to take part in the Talent Programme, but in 2026 it clicked. Partly because the theme is ‘consolation’. I saw how my work could fit with this and decided to take part in the talent programme.”

Ties’s work, I Will Carry This Stone, stems from his experience of grief following the loss of his mother. While clearing out her house, he found an envelope containing photographs from a holiday to Scotland in 1988. His mother was 27 at the time—the same age Ties is now.

“It affected me deeply, in a way, to see her on holiday at my age with her parents. It brought back memories of holidays I took with my mother. I became aware of my mother’s presence. It was such a blow. To what extent is someone really gone? Even when someone is no longer there, there are traces of their presence.”

The discovery marked the beginning of a search. Ties decided to travel to Scotland alone, where he wanted to look for traces of his mother. At the same time, he immersed himself in Scottish stone lifting, which ultimately formed the basis of his project. It was not without its ups and downs. “Every photograph I took made me feel lonely. I really wanted to go back. I decided to finish the journey after all and enjoy the rest of the holiday. It was then, when I let go of the search for traces of my mother, that I found what I was looking for. I found another way to carry the loss of my mother.”

In his exhibition, Ties brings together family archives, archival material on Scottish plant fossils and landscapes photographed by him. In this way, I Will Carry This Stone is not only about loss, but also about the traces someone leaves behind and the ways in which you can continue to carry someone with you. His exhibition can be seen during BredaPhoto 2026 in the Koepel District at Nassaustraat 2.

For emerging makers who are still at school or looking for a way to let their art speak for itself, Ties really has one important tip: stay true to yourself.

“When you start out as a maker, both in the classroom and outside it, it can be a very turbulent time in which you are questioned about who you are and what you stand for. Stay true to yourself and consider what you need for your work and your studies. I think that’s where the most sincere and authentic works come from.”