From the series Only Time Lives Here – The Surrender, 2026 (detail)

Maarten Slagboom & Billie Slagboom

Photographs from the photobook series Only Time Lives Here: what they capture is nature – in the form of ferns, fungi, algae and mosses – reclaiming its place in decayed buildings, an environment that is entirely man-made.

Works

On view at PAN Amsterdam 2026, stand 85, 31 Oct – 8 Nov 2026

Only Time Lives Here – The Surrender

2026

For ten years now, decaying buildings have drawn father and daughter Maarten and Billie Slagboom like a magnet. Once inside, it seems at first glance as if time has frozen, but nothing could be further from the truth. What they capture is nature – in the form of ferns, fungi, algae and mosses – reclaiming its place in decayed buildings, an environment that is entirely man-made. In their photographs the duo records how everything we spend a lifetime trying to control is absorbed back into the greater whole, how reason and purpose surrender to the randomness and mystery of nature. The new life thus breathed into the building is as exciting as it is reassuring.

‘Decay,’ writes Manon Uphoff in her afterword to The Surrender (De overgave), the third volume in their photobook series Only Time Lives Here (Hier woont alleen de tijd; Kyosei, 2026), ‘is a tender event.’

A bedroom whose walls and ceiling are covered in black, ochre and rust-coloured mould; a dust-covered made bed with floral pillows stands between two bedside cabinets, and a small landscape painting hangs above it. — On view
*From the series Only Time Lives Here – The Surrender, 2026*
Photographic print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag Baryta 315 gsm, framed
Three formats, 25 × 37.5 to 40 × 60 cm
Edition of 5 + 2 AP per format
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A room with a frameless glass partition and door standing open, its floor a continuous carpet of green moss; two framed pictures still hang on white walls streaked with green algae. — On view
*From the series Only Time Lives Here – The Surrender, 2026*
Photographic print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag Baryta 315 gsm, framed
Three formats, 25 × 37.5 to 40 × 60 cm
Edition of 5 + 2 AP per format
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A stairwell with a glass-brick wall on the left, moss-green walls, a withered potted plant in the corner and a white staircase with rusted railings and glass balustrade panels. — On view
*From the series Only Time Lives Here – The Surrender, 2026*
Photographic print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag Baryta 315 gsm, framed
Three formats, 25 × 37.5 to 40 × 60 cm
Edition of 5 + 2 AP per format
Inquire

An empty indoor swimming pool lined with pale-blue tiles, a steel handrail leading down its steps; the wall behind is bright green with algae and the ceiling paint peels in large flakes. — On view
*From the series Only Time Lives Here – The Surrender, 2026*
Photographic print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag Baryta 315 gsm, framed
Three formats, 25 × 37.5 to 40 × 60 cm
Edition of 5 + 2 AP per format
Inquire

Close-up of a wall surface: ring-shaped white and green mould colonies on a dark brown ground at left, crazed paint and green moss at right, with paint lifting in small tears. — On view
*From the series Only Time Lives Here – The Surrender, 2026*
Photographic print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag Baryta 315 gsm, framed
25 × 37.5 cm
Edition of 5 + 2 AP
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A wall with a square of white tiles, a glass shelf and two broken-off taps where a washbasin once hung; peeling green-patterned wallpaper to the right and shards of sanitary ware and plaster on the floor. — On view
*From the series Only Time Lives Here – The Surrender, 2026*
Photographic print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag Baryta 315 gsm, framed
Three formats, 25 × 37.5 to 40 × 60 cm
Edition of 5 + 2 AP per format
Inquire

Nowhere is life more present than where it has vanished.
Maarten Slagboom & Billie Slagboom

Biography

Maarten Slagboom (b. 1970) and Billie Slagboom (b. 2001) are a father-and-daughter photography duo from the Netherlands. For ten years, decaying buildings – homes, factories, offices, hotels – have drawn them like a magnet. They photograph these places after the last occupant has left, always in natural daylight, and deliberately leave their locations unnamed.

Both are journalists. Maarten Slagboom is a writer and programme maker and works as an executive editor for documentary series at the Dutch public broadcaster VPRO; his series Stuk (2019) and Een valse start (2025) both won the Zilveren Nipkowschijf. Billie Slagboom writes for Het Financieele Dagblad. Together they also make photo reportages for that newspaper and co-authored Sleutelscènes (Waanders, 2024), a pilgrimage to classic film locations.

Their photobook series Hier woont alleen de tijd (Only Time Lives Here), published by Kyosei, began in 2021 with a volume nominated for the NPO Radio 1 Non-Fiction Book of the Year and continued with Dieper de zone in (2022). The third volume, De overgave (The Surrender, 2026), shifts from the traces left by successive inhabitants to the moment a building gives itself over to nature: ferns, fungi, algae and mosses reclaiming rooms made entirely by human hands. ‘Decay,’ writes the novelist Manon Uphoff in her afterword, ‘is a tender event.’ ‘Each photograph is both a painting and a poem,’ the Taiwanese film director Tsai Ming-liang wrote of the book, ‘a soul-stirring expression.’ An international edition, Only Time Lives Here, will be published by Kerber Verlag in spring 2027. On 22 January 2027 the Writers Unlimited festival in The Hague presents Hier woont alleen de tijd, a programme hosted by Jet Steinz in which six writers read stories written in response to photographs from the series.

Selected exhibitions

2024 — De rilling van de duur, Villa de Bank, Enschede (group)
2021 — KunstRAI, Amsterdam

Publications

Hier woont alleen de tijd – De overgave, with an afterword by Manon Uphoff, Kyosei, 2026
Sleutelscènes, Waanders, 2024
Hier woont alleen de tijd – Dieper de zone in, Kyosei, 2022
Hier woont alleen de tijd, Kyosei, 2021

Selected press

‘Sommige schimmel is zó mooi – dat is gewoon kunst’, NRC, 24 March 2026
Nooit Meer Slapen, VPRO / NPO Radio 1, 30 March 2026
Opium, NPO Klassiek, 3 April 2026
Reviews in Trouw, de Volkskrant, Het Parool and Brabants Dagblad, 2026
‘Vervallen huizen in het volle licht’, Nederlands Dagblad, 26 February 2021

maartenslagboom.nl

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