Ruben van Schalm, Tel Aviv (2025)

20/09/2025

Today, I am proud to share that all proceeds — €2,250 — from my work Homage Erwin Olaf (Palm Springs), from the series Don’t Stop Dreaming (2025), have been donated to the Foundation Erwin Olaf. The Foundation carries forward Erwin’s legacy by supporting freedom of expression, inclusion, and awarding working grants to young creatives from MBO schools.

This work is my personal tribute to Erwin — my friend and mentor, who inspired me deeply. Created at the site where he once photographed his Palm Springs series, the image holds his presence through the Hasselblad camera — resting in the desert silence, cinematic and still.

The edition is now complete: 9/10 placed, with edition 1/10 reserved for museum acquisition.

As Freedom, the retrospective of Erwin Olaf, opens soon at (Oct 11, 2025 – Mar 1, 2026), I am honored to contribute in my own way to his memory.

— Dutch —

Vandaag deel ik met trots dat de volledige opbrengst — €2.250 — van mijn werk Homage Erwin Olaf (Palm Springs), uit de serie Don’t Stop Dreaming (2025), is gedoneerd aan de Foundation Erwin Olaf. De Foundation zet Erwin’s nalatenschap voort door zich in te zetten voor vrijheid van expressie, inclusie en het verstrekken van werkbeurzen aan jonge makers uit het MBO.

Dit werk is mijn persoonlijke eerbetoon aan Erwin — mijn vriend en mentor die mij diep heeft geïnspireerd. Gemaakt op de plek waar hij ooit zijn Palm Springs-serie fotografeerde, draagt het beeld zijn aanwezigheid via de Hasselblad-camera — rustend in de woestijnstilte, filmisch en vol aanwezigheid.

De oplage is nu compleet: 9/10 geplaatst, met editie 1/10 gereserveerd voor museale acquisitie.

Nu Freedom, het retrospectief van Erwin Olaf, binnenkort opent in (11 okt 2025 – 1 mrt 2026), voelt het bijzonder om op mijn eigen manier bij te dragen aan zijn herinnering.

—

07/08/2025

Homage Erwin Olaf (Palm Springs)
 My creative connection with Erwin Olaf began with a single letter — one that quietly altered the course of my life.

From that first exchange grew years of creative collaboration — through photography, film, and conversation — a bond he later described in the foreword to my monograph Paradise (2020).

Although he never saw Don’t Stop Dreaming, it was his belief in my potential — and his quiet encouragement to keep going — that helped bring this series into being.
 Homage Erwin Olaf (Palm Springs) is my way of saying thank you. A gesture of gratitude, in image form.

All proceeds go to ,
supporting freedom of expression, inclusive creative education, and emerging voices in photography.

—
Work Featured Ruben van Schalm Homage Erwin Olaf (Palm Springs) Don’t Stop Dreaming, 2025 Archival pigment print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag Baryta 315 gsm 11 x 14 inch
Edition of 10 + 2 APs
 100% of proceeds donated  Reduced price to support accessibility Link in bio for full story and collector details

—
Erwin’s work continues to be celebrated internationally.
His major retrospective, Erwin Olaf: Freedom, will be on view at the from October 11, 2025 to March 1, 2026. Curated by Charles Landvreugd, in collaboration with Studio Erwin Olaf. Supported by and the  For more details, please visit the Stedelijk Museum’s website.

29/07/2025

Bending Not Broken
From the series Don’t Stop Dreaming
by Ruben van Schalm

In the desert, survival doesn’t always look like strength.
Sometimes, it looks like surrender.
But even what bends is not without will.

This image captures a Joshua tree arched toward the earth — weathered, yet intact. A quiet form shaped by tension and grace. Resilience not as spectacle, but as presence.

Like so many of us, it adapted.
Not to hold its original form — but to remain.

Bending Not Broken is a meditation on the kind of endurance that isn’t loud. The kind that lives on in shape, shadow, and silence.

—

For sizes, availability, and more from Don’t Stop Dreaming,
please see the full series via the link in profile.

Edition of 10 + 2 AP
Institutional and collector inquiries welcome.

27/07/2025

Celestial Drift
From the series Don’t Stop Dreaming
by Ruben van Schalm

Stillness doesn’t mean absence — it means presence, extended. In this image, the landscape breathes slowly.
A solitary form dissolves into the light,
suspended between the real and remembered.

Created in the California desert, Celestial Drift captures a space between thoughts — a horizonless moment of quiet clarity.

—

Edition of 10 + 2AP
Available by direct inquiry.
Institutional and private interest welcome.

10/07/2025

Interwoven Dreams
From the series Don’t Stop Dreaming
by Ruben van Schalm

The forms we encounter in nature often echo the unconscious — branching, converging, diverging — like the inner architecture of thought. In this photograph, the Joshua tree becomes a study of rhythm and resistance. Sharp angles and soft voids exist in tension. What is tangled here is not chaos, but memory.

Every turn of this tree was once a choice — shaped by wind, light, and the unseen will to survive. The direction of growth is held in its memory, just as our own paths are shaped by what we’ve endured and imagined. Interwoven Dreams is not only about form, but about forging a direction — even when it bends.

Created in the silence of the desert, the work continues the series’ dialogue with solitude, resilience, and the quiet force of becoming.

—

Want to learn more about Ruben van Schalm’s poetic lens on nature and human longing?
Click the link in bio to view the full body of work.

Edition of 10 + 2AP, available through direct inquiry.
All institutional requests welcome.

01/07/2025

Today, on what would have been Erwin Olaf’s 66th birthday, I share Homage Erwin Olaf (Palm Springs) — a photograph from my series Don’t Stop Dreaming, created in Palm Springs, at the very location where Erwin photographed his own masterful series, Palm Springs.

This image was never meant as a performance, but as a quiet gesture. A Hasselblad rests in the sun-drenched silence of the desert — still, cinematic, and full of presence. A way to say thank you.

I had the privilege of working with Erwin on several occasions, including modeling for his Fall series. But what shaped me most was his trust — and the way he made silence feel like a language of its own.

As the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam prepares his first retrospective in the Netherlands since his passing — Erwin Olaf: Freedom — I hope this photograph stands quietly beside his legacy, in admiration and respect.

Homage Erwin Olaf (Palm Springs) archival pigment print 11x14inch is available in an edition of 10 + 2AP. All proceeds will be donated to the Erwin Olaf Foundation — with special thanks to Shirley den Hartog, who stood beside Erwin for over 25 years and continues to safeguard the vision they shaped together.

.vanschalm

24/06/2025

A Dream Bends
 Not all strength is rigid. This form—reaching, curving, alive—bends toward something unseen. Like a question mark in the sky. A line drawn in light. Some dreams don’t hold their shape. They evolve. And in that, they survive.

Photographed in Joshua Tree, this piece is part of Don’t Stop Dreaming — an ongoing series where the fragility of the desert becomes a quiet metaphor for presence, memory, and resilience. 

Want to learn more about Van Schalm’s poetic work? Click the link in bio to view more.

15/06/2025

Radiant and untouchable.

This Cholla, glowing in the desert light, appears soft at first glance — but its barbed spines anchor deep. Touch it, and you’ll remember.

From Don’t Stop Dreaming, this image reflects on the instinct to guard what matters. Some forms protect their inner light not by choice, but by nature — shaped by what they’ve had to survive.

It’s a reminder that tenderness often wears armor. And that strength, in its quietest forms, can be both beautiful and unapproachable.

⸻

09/06/2025

The Shape of Dreams

One form, suspended against the fading light.
There are moments in nature that seem to pause everything—no wind, no movement, no sound. Just form, shadow, and breath.
This Joshua tree, with its elegant symmetry and quiet defiance, becomes more than landscape. It becomes a symbol. Of clarity. Of fragility. Of something ancient still unfolding. Of choosing your own path, even when it branches in unexpected ways.

Part of Don’t Stop Dreaming, this image is less about a tree and more about how we project our own longings into the landscape. The desire for stillness. The need to belong to something timeless. The quiet strength to shape our own direction.

29/05/2025

Fallen Not Forgotten

A form once upright. Now resting.

Some shapes continue — not through position, but through presence.

This photograph from Don’t Stop Dreaming reflects on what remains after the visible has shifted.

The trace of something that no longer stands,
but is still felt.

23/05/2025

Rooted in Stone
A Joshua tree, half-hidden. Almost unseen.
There was something protective in the way the land held it — and something vulnerable too. This image from Don’t Stop Dreaming speaks to the quiet tension between endurance and exposure.
Not everything that survives does so visibly.
Some strength exists just beneath the surface.
(What does quiet strength look like to you?)

20/05/2025

Where Silence Rest

A portrait of stillness — held before it disappears.
Photographed in California as part of Don’t Stop Dreaming, this work captures a moment of inwardness.

The figure is still. The landscape holds its breath.
I was thinking about how silence isn’t the absence of something, but the shape of something that once moved — or might move again.
The desert has a way of turning emotion into architecture. What we feel, and what we’ve lost, live side by side out there.

One of the small-format editions (1/10) of this work has recently entered a private collection. This piece lives quietly in that space — between presence and retreat.

(What does silence hold for you?)

Ruben van Schalm

20/09/2025

07/08/2025

29/07/2025

27/07/2025

10/07/2025

01/07/2025

24/06/2025

15/06/2025

09/06/2025

29/05/2025

23/05/2025

20/05/2025

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