It Is Us

2017 – present

People are invited to choose a part of their body they feel strongly about — something they are proud of, or something they usually hide. A scar, a birthmark, an uneven body part, a detail shaped by time or experience. Dekker photographs it, anonymously. The choice is entirely theirs.

Nothing is directed, corrected or filtered. The photographs are printed on site and gradually brought together to form collective bodies — each one composed of many individual images. Character emerges through contrast: confidence next to doubt, vulnerability alongside strength.

The outcome is always a surprise. As the bodies take shape, they often provoke recognition, curiosity and a quiet sense of humour: not because they are perfect, but because they feel familiar in unexpected ways.

Where Dekker's portraits are of people he went looking for, It Is Us is made with whoever takes part. The project answers the polished bodies of social media with a body that reflects who we are collectively: marked, uneven, personal and human. Not an image of who we could become, but a recognition of who we already are.

Interested in bringing It Is Us to your venue? Get in touch.