Ken Stoové photographs the places he knows best - places he considers to be closest to home, or communities in which he finds comfort. By focusing on personal stories from his family, often relating to the Javanese-Surinamese community, he tries to explore the changing geographies of migration and resettlement. He examines how these histories can be found in the small details of our (the community’s) daily life.

He works with analog photography - a traditional form of documentation and recording - to visually capture a culture that is mainly carried through “oral formulae.” This is important because this history has often been studied from an exoticizing or external perspective. As a result, for a long time he had no clear image of what his culture actually entails, and never experienced a sense of meaning or recognition.

His photographs therefore mainly show his immediate surroundings, with the people and objects that play a role in them: family members, physical inheritances, objects, and friends. A literal representation of where he comes from.