European Fields Unlocked

For over a century, football has brought people together. This spring, however, in the midst of the pandemic, our beloved sporting events were cancelled. As a gesture in these uncertain times of social distancing, Paradox and photographer Hans van der Meer have remastered and shared previously unreleased short films showing amateur football across Europe as a window into human behaviour. At the moment some professional competitions have started up again – without spectators, looking as desolate as the amateur pitches in the middle of nowhere – all five films are now available!

European Fields by Hans van der Meer, a project including a book (SteidlMACK, 2006) and a travelling exhibition, shows the primal form of the game: twenty-two players on a pitch, no matter their talent, no matter where. Passionately playing together, in a setting far away from the Champions League. His observations of life at the bottom of the football pyramid show not only how football is part of the landscape, but also how deeply the game and its rituals are rooted in human culture. With mild irony, Van der Meer demonstrates the mismatch between human ambition and the effective result, between an individual’s ‘inside’ perception and a more objective, distanced view of our behaviour. Amateur football as the perfect metaphor for life at large.

The European Fields exhibition contained a number of video observations as well as photographic football landscapes. These were shot in Belgium, the UK, Portugal, France and Italy. As part of the cultural programme surrounding Euro 2000, the first one Vlaamse Velden (Flemish Fields), dates back to exactly 20 years ago.

Together with European cultural institutions Mufoco (IT), Impressions Gallery (UK) and Imago Lisboa (PT) as well as prominent sports writers and journalists including Jan Mulder, Matteo Dore and David Winner, Paradox launched these short films throughout May and June on a dedicated Youtube channel receiving international acclaim. With over 600 subscribers and thousands of views, the project has so far been featured in De Volkskrant, Het Parool, NPO Radio 1, AD, Staantribune (all NL), L’Oeil de la Photographie (FR), Mais Futebol (PT), Corriere Della Sera (IT) and Telegraph and Argus (UK).