In 2016 Mei got in touch with photo archives for the first time. She inherited 7boxes of her grandma, which were filled with family pictures and documents.Mei was curious about her family history, so dived into the boxes and the project ‘Oele’ was born. After ordering thousands of pictures, Mei ended up with a selection of most important people and documents in the archive. Most of the people were unknown. Mei wrote poems about her fascination for these mysterious family members. She decided to portrait this family mystery into a handmade book filled with photo’s, poems, research and documents. At the time this project started, Mei wasn’t conscious about the role of the archive.

‘Oele’ was the start of a series of projects, which discuss Mei’s background and the value of images and archives.