Photographers in Focus: Viviane Sassen

For Dutch-born artist and fashion photographer Viviane Sassen, it is not Arnhem or Amsterdam but a village in the remote west of rural Kenya that holds the biggest sway over her creative voice. Sassen, the subject of the latest episode of our flagship series Photographers in Focus, spent her early years in the East African country, learning much from its “bright sunlight and dark shadows.” It is a subject to which she has returned again and again. Since returning to northern Europe to live and study, Sassen has established herself across the fields of fashion photography and art, and is much lauded for her stylistic calling-card of geometric shapes and abstracted bodies. These images, observed the veteran shooter in an interview earlier this year, are like “puzzles,” where she “brings a few elements together and experiments” while always looking “for that little bit of magic.” Contributing regularly to titles including Dazed and Confused, Pop, and AnOther, Sassen has collaborated on a wide range