On Transformation and Becoming Visible.
Melt is a photographic and installation-based project exploring transformation, vulnerability, and the shifting nature of identity.
At its core, the work focuses on what happens when an image is no longer fixed, but becomes part of a process.
By embedding photographic portraits in large blocks of ice, I create a temporary state in which the image is held, yet never stable. As the ice melts, a reverse movement takes place: the image does not disappear, but gradually reveals itself. Layers fall away, and a presence slowly emerges, as if a mask of ice were falling off.
This process transforms the photograph from a static object into a living moment. Time becomes visible. The work is not about freezing reality, but about allowing it to unfold through the melting process.
Melt reflects on the idea that identity is not something solid, but something continuously shaped through exposure, change, and letting go. The melting becomes a metaphor for releasing control, an ongoing movement in which something hidden becomes visible.
In Melt, a large-scale public installation created in collaboration with my son, an audiovisual artist, this process expands into a shared experience. A monumental ice block containing an image is placed in a public space, allowing viewers to witness the slow transformation in real time. Sound and moving images add another dimension, turning the work into a temporal and collective encounter.
The documentation of these processes through photography, video, and sometimes digital editions forms a secondary layer in which the ephemeral is both preserved and questioned. The source material comes from a series of photographs I made in smaller versions, fascinated by the magical, unforeseen movements in the melting ice and the transformation of a hidden photograph. I first made all the photographs and portraits on location or in my studio, sometimes with the subjects holding real pieces of ice.
This direction contrasts with a newer body of work, Unbecoming, in which the movement is reversed. Instead of emerging from the image, the subject dissolves into abstraction. Where Melt reveals, this work obscures, raising similar questions about identity, but from an opposite perspective.
The work is rooted in a personal urgency, shaped by my experience with people living with Alzheimer’s. Witnessing the gradual fading of memory and recognition led me to question what identity truly is, and how it can be visualized. In this work, the image no longer appears, but slowly disappears, transforming into something ungraspable.
Together, these projects explore the tension between becoming visible and disappearing, between holding on and letting go.
A curated selection of works from this project is available as limited-edition fine art prints.
About Rene Dissel
Rene Dissel is a Dutch photographer and visual artist working at the intersection of portraiture, installation, and conceptual storytelling. His work explores themes of transformation, vulnerability, and the relationship between time and identity.
He is known for his ongoing project Melt, in which photographic images are embedded in ice and gradually revealed through the process of melting. In collaboration with his son, an audiovisual artist, he develops interdisciplinary installations that combine photography, sound, and moving images. [Official Website]
