Terra Cognita by Noorderlicht Photography

noorderlicht

Publisher Stichting Aurora Borealis, under the auspices of the Noorderlicht Photography Foundation

Distribution Idea Books, Amsterdam T +31 (0)20 622 61 54

Stichting Fotografie Noorderlicht Stichting Aurora Borealis Akerkhof 12 9711 JB Groningen The Netherlands T +31 (0)50 318 22 27 info@noorderlicht.com www.noorderlicht.com

ISBN/EAN: 978-90-76703-48-0

Nothing in this book may be reproduced without prior written permission from the publisher. 2

c ura t e d b y w i m m e l i s th e e n c h a n t e d f o re s t safe haven i n sp i r a t i o n i n t o t h e u n k n o wn the urban jungle u n t a me d guest curator alfred dong the harmony between man and heaven experimental landscape from china

The copyright for all written contributions to this book resides with the respective authors. The copyright for all photographs in this book resides with the respective photographers, with the following courtesies:

Jane Fulton Alt | Corden Potts Gallery (United States) Sonja Braas | ftc. Berlin (Germany) Alejandro Chaskielberg | Michael Hoppen Gallery (United Kingdom) Dornith Doherty | Holly Johnson Gallery, McMurtrey Gallery (United States) Claire Dorn | SHAG (France) Bela Doka | Faur Zsofi Gallery (Hungary) Rena Effendi | INSTITUTE (United States) Michael Flomen | Ricco Maresca Gallery (United States) Peter Funch | V1 Gallery (Denmark) Henrik Isaksson Garnell | Swedish Photography (Germany) Eric Jan van de Geer | Galerie Zic Zerp (The Netherlands) Toni Hafkenscheid | Birch Libralato Gallery (Canada) Sharon Harper | Gallery Stefan Roepke (Germany), Rick Wester Fine Art (United States) Paul den Hollander | Kahmann Gallery (The Netherlands) Scarlett Hooft Graafland | Vous Etes Ici Galerie (The Netherlands) Sabine Haubitz and Stefanie Zoche | Nusser & Baumgart (Germany) Carlos Irijalba | Gallery Sherin Najjar (Germany) Kahn & Selesnick | Aeroplastics Contemporary (Belgium) Gábor Kerekes | Nessim Gallery (Hungary) Samnang Khvay | Sa Sa Bassac Gallery (Cambodia) Knibbeler/Wetzer | LhGWR (The Netherlands) Hiroyuki Masuyama | Sfeir – Semler Gallery (Germany, Lebanon) Paula McCartney | Klompching Gallery (United States) Wawi Navarroza | Silverlens Gallery (Philippines) Catherine Nelson | Galerie Paris-Beijing (France, China) Loan Nguyen | Gallery Esther Woerdehoff (France) Meike Nixdorf | Jen Bekman Projects (United States) Katsumi Omori | Galerie Wouter van Leeuwen (The Netherlands) Polixeni Papapetrou | Artitled (the Netherlands), Jenkins Johnson Gallery (USA), Stills Gallery, Nellie Castan Gallery (Australia) Zhao Renhui | The Land Archive (Singapore) Misha de Ridder | Galerie Juliètte Jongma (The Netherlands) Gerco de Ruijter | Galerie Zic Zerp, (The Netherlands) Susannah Sayler & Edward Morris | The Canary Project (United States) Andy Sewell | James Hyman Gallery (United Kingdom) Anastasia Taylor-Lind | VII Photo (France) Kurt Tong | Jen Bekman Gallery (United States), The Photographers Gallery (United Kingdom), Blindspot Gallery (Hong Kong) Stephanie Valentin | Stills Gallery (Australia) Benoît Vollmer | Van Kranendonk Gallery (NL), Galerie Paul Freches (France), East Wing Contemporary (United Arab Emirates) Robert Walker | Ivorypress (Spain) Marcel Wesdorp | Zic Zerp Galerie (The Netherlands) Thomas Wrede | Beck & Eggeling, Wagner + Partner (Germany) 4

the enchanted forest

018 Jane Fulton Alt

080 Britta Isenrath

020 Kim Boske

082 Kalpesh Lathigra

022 JG Bryce

084 Lola Reboud

024 Patricia van de Camp

086 Misha de Ridder

026 Ellie Davies

088 Simon Roberts

028 David Farrell

090 Matthieu Rytz

030 Doug Fogelson

092 Susannah Sayler & Edward Morris

032 Julia Fullerton-Batten

094 TAXI

034 Andrej Glusgold

096 Goos van der Veen

036 Samuel Hense

098 Marco Vernaschi

038 Sana Khan 040 Paula McCartney

inspiration

042 Simon Menner

102 Yasser Aggour

044 Polixeni Papapetrou

104 Paul Bogaers

046 Rattana Vandy

106 Juan Calle

048 Nick Rochowski

108 Claire Dorn

050 Gregor Schuster

110 Peter Funch

052 Peter Solness

112 Toni Hafkenscheid

054 Agnes Thor

114 Carlos Irijalba

056 Tessa Verder

116 Scarlett Hooft Graafland

058 BenoĂŽt Vollmer

118 Samnang Khvay 120 Hiroyuki Masuyama

safe haven

122 Michael Najjar

062 Korrie Besems

124 Aislinn Leggett

064 Sasha Bezzubov

126 Wawi Navarroza

066 Jon Cazenave

128 Loan Nguyen

068 Venetia Dearden

130 Meike Nixdorf

070 Bela Doka

132 Renhui Zhao

072 Rena Effendi

134 Gerco de Ruijter

074 Stuart Franklin

136 Takeshi Shikama

076 David Galjaard

138 Robert Walker

078 John Brinton Hogan

140 Thomas Wrede 5

into the unknown

202 Christophe Maout

144 Myrto Apostolidou

204 Jamie Maxtone-Graham

146 Justine Blau

206 Ardine Nelson

148 Anita Cruz-Eberhard

208 Yan Preston

150 Alison Carey

210 Irina Rozovsky

152 Margherita Cesaretti

212 Traer Scott

154 Christopher Colville

214 Andy Sewell

156 Henrik Isaksson Garnell

216 Anastasia Taylor-Lind

158 Michael Flomen

218 Kurt Tong

160 Sharon Harper

220 Graeme Williams

162 Paul den Hollander 164 Kahn & Selesnick

untamed

166 Dornith Doherty

224 Sonja Braas

168 Gรกbor Kerekes

226 Alejandro Chaskielberg

170 Peeter Laurits

228 Sumit Dayal

172 Sergey Lutsenko

230 James Whitlow Delano

174 Judy Natal

232 Nigel Dickinson

176 Catherine Nelson

234 Wyatt Gallery

178 Edi Szekely

236 Michel Huneault

180 Stephanie Valentin

238 Massimo Mastrorillo

182 Marcel Wesdorp

240 Katsumi Omori 242 Miti Ruangkritya

the urban jungle

186 Karin Borghouts

244 Protick Sarker 246 S. Gayle Stevens

188 Ignasi Cunill

190 Erwan Fichou

192 Eric Jan van de Geer

250 Chaosheng Lu

appendix

194 Kate Greene

252 Hongxun Gao

196 Jonathan Groeneweg

254 Peiquan Wang

198 Sabine Haubitz & Stefanie Zoche

256 Weixin Fu

200 Knibbeler/Wetzer

258 Weixing Zhang

terra cognita Every so often I dream about the woods: the mists which hang from the canopy of foliage like angel hair, the summer sun filtering through the leaves, the humus underfoot that sparkles like water. I dream of snow being piled up by the wind and the barren, black tree trunks that struggle to free themselves from the drifts – a world in black and white. Time freezes, and the cacophony of everyday life recedes beyond the horizon. Peace. Real nature - so goes the often-heard complaint – hardly exists any more, and certainly not in the developed First World. The wilderness has been eradicated or tamed, paved over or ploughed under. There were sound reasons for doing that. It reduced the uncertainties of life, the chances of deadly diseases, hunger and natural disasters. The threats that in part defined our perception of nature for long millennia made way for romantic concepts that are their opposites. Particularly during the last two centuries nature has been reshaped to man’s intents and purposes: from the public parks of the 19th century to the geometric gardens in new bedroom communities, from the nature reserves ordained by planning committees to the dead-straight boundaries of fields and watercourses, the rural landscape after land consolidation. That landscape is the reflection of our practical and aesthetic preferences, a projection of our needs and ideals.

I grew up in a relative wilderness: a tumble-down house in a small woods in Groningen where

natural growth was being permitted to take its course. It was a childhood under circumstances which were a blessing and a curse at one and the same time. My body became programmed to shape itself to fit through the openings in the undergrowth, and almost instinctively I jumped over dry ditches and avoided whipping branches as a boxer weaves to dodge the punches of his opponent. I have lived in the city for years now, but I am always aware that something is missing in my experience. It is an exaggerated form of the phantom pain that I think we all know well.

In an evolutionary perspective, people have been living in cities for only a blink of an eye.

In any case, our brains have still not fully adapted themselves. When life around us is developing at a breakneck speed, with all the feelings of unease, impotence and disorientation that go with that, we seek support in the familiar. Nature – and, for simplicity’s sake, by that I mean any organic environment, from a primaeval forest to a back garden – continues to attract us. That is more than nostalgia and a penchant for reassurance: it is wisdom. Nature has a demonstrably beneficial effect on our wellbeing. Green is the most restful colour (operating rooms are painted green). Patients recover faster if they are in leafy environments. Surrounded by living plants, people enter a state of contemplation that decreases the stress activity in the nervous system and restores balance in the brain. The price of real estate rises if it affords a view of woods, water, or meadows. It is a remarkable fact that according to neuro-researchers contact with nature stimulates the right half of the brain, where creativity resides. For centuries now, nature, ‘wild’ or stylized, has been a source of inspiration for artists: natura artis magistra.

Moreover, Mother Nature (a fitting appellation!) represents a number of basic values. Although

Darwin described the biological world in terms of war and conflict (and not without reason), this world could equally well be a model for cooperation and community. Nothing in an ecosystem exists by itself, 7

and everything functions as a coherent whole. Nature gives us food and oxygen. Although we have domesticated her, shaped her, and to some extent have driven her out of our lives, we are in no way less a part of, and owe no less debt to Nature. If we would understand ourselves better, that can only be done by including our relationship with the natural world in our search for self-knowledge. Artists, such as the photographers in Terra Cognita, play an important role in that.

How we see and experience nature tells us a lot about our identity, our culture. Nature bears

our face, certainly in art. In earlier times it was the domain of irascible gods who could be unpredictable, vengeful and destructive. In the 19th century, when nature had lost its sharp edges in Europe, romantics described the mystical and sublime in nature, an aspect that a painter like Caspar David Friedrich expressed in his metaphysical canvases. Since then, for many of us – and in any case, certainly for me – God has disappeared from the landscape. What remains is an experience that is both prosaic and transcendent. Nature helps free me from the workaday, the flat, the material. In the meantime I can also simply eat my sandwich undisturbed. Terra Cognita is about the experience of nature in all her manifestations, from the tangible, living and breathing landscape, to its dreamed and fantastic incarnations, the nature of our thoughts. Although man sometimes seems to be marginally present in these photos, if at all, he has unmistakeably left his mark: sometimes in the form of direct interventions in the landscape, but always with interventions in the image. Nature is not in majestic isolation in these photos, but betrays the individual character and emotions that their maker, consciously or not, has projected on it. After the theme of this years festival was made public, Noorderlicht received an avalanche of entries. It showed the theme was even more timely than expected. Is there due to the eroding economic and politic order, but also due to the poor economic prospects within the field of photography a hankering for roots and for security?

It is striking, but not illogical, that compared with previous Noorderlicht exhibitions, this show

counts more Western photographers than usual. The nostalgia for a vanished nature and the creation of our own personal ideal image of landscape are a symptom of a society that has reached a state of extreme development and urbanization. More surprising is the prominent role of female photographers – they represent over a third of the selected works.

It is work that looks back, in references to classic painting, but also in a conscious attempt

to obscure human influence on the world. It is also work that looks ahead, to a world that does not yet exist (and possibly will never exist), from which man has practically disappeared. The technique reflects these divergent visions: from straight photography to manipulated imagery, from archaic photographic procedures and timeless black and white to digitally enhanced or even entirely computer generated work that de facto can not longer be called photography. In this exhibition the melting together of genres, a recurrent aspect of Noorderlicht, is total. Work that has wrested itself free from time, into an eternal here and now, hangs next to work which, through its narrative power, very strongly suggests a prequel and sequel. Terra Cognita shows how different approaches co-exist and influence each other; no divisions between genres or artificial barriers between modern and old, but a seamless artistic continuum.

More than all else, the curator Wim Melis wanted to assemble an exhibition in which separate chapters and individual images enter into a dialogue with one another. From these connections between the images – connections which transcend the classic linear forms of exhibition – a larger and richer statement about our relation with nature arises. Terra Cognita shows the strength and relevance inherent to the medium of photography.

Once upon a time there was a forest... That is where the journey begins: in an archetypal

landscape in which threat and uncertainty still rule. It is a forest of images that is difficult to negotiate – sometimes sinister, often romantic, always provocative. The images refer to the rich catalogue of myths, symbols and stories that have anchored themselves in our collective consciousness, but equally to the world of dreams and nightmares. The forest is nature that conceals – the boscage closes, sometimes opening to let in a shaft of light and create shadows, or affording a brief glimpse through. The analogy with the photo printing process is obvious: what is let through and what is withheld determines what we see. It is a relatively wild world of sparse light amidst overwhelming darkness.

Further along one comes to an open field. One’s gaze ranges further, the hand of man becomes

visible in the traces that he has left on the world. Linear stories spin out within the cyclic stories of seasons, of birth, death and rebirth: stories of individual human lives, of interventions in the landscape, of loves that flower. These stories leave behind an afterimage, scars, tattoos. We see with increased sharpness how man lives together with nature, forcibly shapes it, but also embraces it. Here man finds a place in nature, arrives at rest there.

As the hand of man becomes increasingly evident in the landscape, the presence of the

photographer also becomes increasingly compelling in the work. From documentary work and reportage we arrive at very personal images in which nature is manipulated to express a creative vision: mountains that follow the fluctuations of the stock market, work that reaches back to the language of painting, work that makes the invisible sublimity of nature visible.

The long journey through and around the main location of Museum Belvédère – there are still

other chapters to be seen in ancillary locations – finally reaches a landscape that originates totally in the mind. Nature, to whose mercy man was once entirely given over, seems to be manipulable down to the last pixel. The photographer, chronicler of the moment, proves to be able to create memories of moments which never existed. We see and experience exotic, extraterrestrial worlds about which we can fantasize. Shaking off the world that we know, we tumble over the edge of space and time. But this contact with this entirely artificial nature is also an experience that deepens and enriches our confrontation with ourselves. It is a thought that is at once melancholy and hopeful: if all nature disappears, we can continue to seek contact with nature in a virtual domain. Perhaps we will even encounter again something of those anxieties that were part and parcel of the wilderness of long, long ago.

The farther away that I have moved from the woods of my childhood, the more mythic that

woods has become. I realize that it was never exactly like I remember it. In that way my memory is like the landscape in these photographs, which simultaneously touches on, distorts and transcends reality.

auke hulst

terra cognita Om de zoveel tijd droom ik van het bos: de nevelen die zich als engelenhaar om het loof draperen, de zomerzon, gefilterd door de bladeren, de stoffige bodem die fonkelt als water. Ik droom van sneeuw die tot stuifduinen is opgeklopt en de kale, zwarte stammen die zich eraan ontworstelen – een wereld in zwart-wit. De tijd bevriest en de kakofonie van alledag trekt zich terug achter de horizon. Rust. Echte natuur, zo luidt een veelgehoorde klacht, bestaat nauwelijks nog, zeker niet in het ontwikkelde Westen. De wildernis is uitgeroeid of geknecht, geasfalteerd of gecultiveerd. Dat gebeurde met gegronde redenen: het terugdringen van onzekerheid, van dodelijke ziekten, honger en natuurgeweld. De dreiging die gedurende millennia (mede) onze perceptie van de natuur heeft bepaald, heeft plaats kunnen maken voor romantische ideeën die daar haaks op staan. Vooral in de laatste tweehonderd jaar is de natuur naar eigen inzicht en voor eigen doeleinden hervormd: van de volksparken van de negentiende eeuw tot geometrische plantsoenen in Vinex-wijken, van door bestemmingsplannen verordonneerde natuurgebieden tot de rechte lijnen van akkers en watergangen: het land na de ruilverkaveling. Dát landschap is de weerslag van onze praktische en esthetische voorkeuren, een projectie van behoeftes en idealen.

Ik ben opgegroeid in een relatieve wildernis: een vervallen huis in een klein, Gronings bos dat

werd toegestaan naar believen te woekeren. Het was een jeugd onder omstandigheden die tegelijk een voorrecht en een vloek waren. Mijn lichaam werd er geprogrammeerd zich te vormen naar de doorgangen en bijna instinctief sprong ik over drooggevallen slootjes of ontweek ik zwiepende takken zoals boksers stoten van de tegenstander. Inmiddels leef ik al jaren in de stad, maar ik ben me er altijd van bewust dat er iets ontbreekt. Het is een uitvergrote vorm van de fantoompijn die we denk ik allemaal wel kennen.

In evolutionaire zin leven mensen nog maar een oogwenk in een stedelijke realiteit. Het brein

heeft zich er in elk geval nog niet volledig op aangepast. Terwijl het leven om ons heen zich in razend tempo ontwikkelt, met alle daarbij behorende gevoelens van onbehagen, onmacht en desoriëntatie, zoeken we naar houvast in het vertrouwde. Natuur – en laat ik daar voor het gemak élke organische omgeving, van oerwoud tot achtertuin, mee bedoelen – blijft aan ons trekken. Dat is meer dan weemoed en een hang naar geruststelling: het is wijsheid. Natuur heeft een aantoonbaar gunstig effect op ons welzijn. Groen is de meest rustgevende kleur (operatiekamers zijn groen). Patiënten herstellen sneller als ze zich in een lommerrijke omgeving bevinden. Omringd door begroeiing komen mensen in een contemplatieve staat die stressactiviteit in het zenuwstelsel vermindert en de balans in het brein herstelt. De prijs van onroerend goed stijgt zodra er zicht is op bossen, water, heide. Frappant: volgens hersenonderzoekers stimuleert contact met natuur de rechter hersenhelft, waar creativiteit huist. Natuur, ‘wild’ of gestileerd, is al eeuwen een inspiratiebron voor kunstenaars: natura artis magistra.

Moeder Natuur, een veelzeggende benaming, is bovendien drager van een aantal kernwaarden. Hoewel Darwin de biologische wereld, niet ten onrechte, beschreef in termen van oorlog en strijd, is die wereld evengoed een model voor samenwerking en gemeenschap. In een ecosysteem bestaat niets op zichzelf en functioneert alles in samenhang. De natuur schenkt ons voedsel en zuurstof. Al temmen we haar, vormen we haar en hebben we haar deels uit ons leven verdreven, we zijn onverminderd deel van en schatplichtig aan de natuur. Als we onszelf beter willen begrijpen, dan kan dat slechts door onze verhouding tot de natuurlijke wereld in het vraagstuk te betrekken. Daarin hebben kunstenaars, zoals de fotografen in Terra Cognita, een belangrijke rol te spelen.

Hoe we de natuur zien en ervaren, vertelt iets over onze identiteit, onze cultuur. De natuur

draagt óns gezicht, zeker in kunst. In vroeger tijden was ze het domein van gramstorige goden die onvoorspelbaar, wraakzuchtig en destructief konden zijn. In de negentiende eeuw, toen in Europa de natuur haar scherpe randjes had verloren, ontwaarden romantici het mystieke en sublieme in de natuur, een aspect dat een schilder als Caspar David Friedrich in sprookjesachtige doeken uitbeende. Inmiddels is voor velen van ons – voor mij in elk geval wel – God uit het landschap verdwenen. Wat rest is een ervaring die zowel prozaïsch als transcendent is. De natuur helpt me los te komen van het dagelijkse, het platte, het materiële. Ondertussen kan ik er ook gewoon rustig mijn broodje eten. Terra Cognita gaat over het ervaren van natuur, in al haar verschijningsvormen. Van het tastbare, ademende en levende landschap, tot haar gedroomde en fantastische incarnaties – de natuur in onze gedachten. Hoewel de mens soms nauwelijks aanwezig lijkt in deze foto’s, drukt hij er onmiskenbaar zijn stempel op: soms met directe ingrepen in het landschap, maar altijd met ingrepen in het beeld. De natuur staat in deze foto’s niet op zichzelf, maar verraadt het individuele karakter en de emoties die de maker er, al dan niet bewust, op heeft geprojecteerd.

Na de bekendmaking van het thema werd Noorderlicht overspoeld door inzendingen.

Het thema bleek nóg actueler dan verwacht. Is er met het eroderen van de economische en politieke orde, maar ook met de bedroevende economische vooruitzichten voor het vak van fotograaf een verlangen naar worteling, naar zekerheid?

Het is opvallend, maar niet onlogisch, dat deze tentoonstelling naar verhouding meer

westerse fotografen telt dan voor Noorderlicht gebruikelijk is. De weemoed naar (een verdwenen) natuur en het eigenhandig creëren van een ideaalbeeld van landschap horen bij een samenleving die vergaand is verstedelijkt en ontwikkeld. Verrassender is de prominente rol van vrouwelijke fotografen – zij vertegenwoordigen ruim een derde van het geselecteerde werk.

Het is werk dat achteruit kijkt, in referenties aan klassieke schilderkunst, maar ook in

een bewuste poging de menselijke invloed op de wereld te verdoezelen. En het is werk dat vooruit kijkt, naar een wereld die nog niet bestaat (en mogelijk ook nooit zal bestaan) en waaruit de mens daadwerkelijk is verdwenen. De techniek reflecteert die uiteenlopende visies; van straight photography tot beeldmanipulaties, van archaïsche procédés en tijdloos zwart-wit tot digitaal nabewerkt of zelf helemaal in de computer gegenereerd werk dat de facto niet langer fotografie kan worden genoemd. De versmelting van genres, een terugkerend aspect van Noorderlicht, is in deze tentoonstelling totaal. Werk dat zich ontworstelt aan de tijd, een eeuwigdurend hier en nu, staat naast werk dat door zijn 14

verhalende kracht juist zeer sterk een hiervoor en hierna suggereert. Terra Cognita laat zien hoe alles naast elkaar bestaat en op elkaar inwerkt. Geen genrescheidingen, geen kunstmatige barrières tussen modern en oud, maar een naadloos artistiek continuüm. Bovenal heeft curator Wim Melis een tentoonstelling willen samenstellen waarin de afzonderlijke hoofdstukken en individuele beelden met elkaar in gesprek gaan. In de dwarsverbanden tussen de beelden – dwarsverbanden die klassieke lineaire tentoonstellingsvormen overstijgen – ontstaat een groter en rijker verhaal over onze relatie met de natuur. Terra Cognita toont de kracht en relevantie van het medium fotografie.

Er was eens een bos... Daar begint de reis: in een archetypisch landschap waarin nog

dreiging en onzekerheid heerst. Het is een moeilijk begaanbaar woud van beelden – soms sinister, vaak romantisch, altijd prikkelend. De beelden refereren aan de rijke catalogus aan mythen, symbolen en verhalen die zich in het collectieve bewustzijn hebben verankerd, maar ook aan de wereld van dromen en nachtmerries. Het woud is natuur die verhult – de rijen sluiten zich, bieden soms een doorkijkje, laten licht door, creëren schaduwen. De analogie met het afdrukproces ligt voor de hand: wat wordt doorgelaten en wordt weggenomen bepaalt wat we zien. Het is een relatief wilde wereld van spaarzaam licht in overwegend donker.

Verderop ligt het open veld. De blik reikt verder, de mens wordt zichtbaar in de sporen die

hij op de wereld heeft nagelaten. Binnen het cyclische verhaal van seizoenen, van geboorte, dood en wedergeboorte, ontspinnen zich lineaire verhalen: die van individuele mensenlevens, van ingrepen in het landschap, van liefdes die tot bloei komen. Die verhalen laten een nabeeld achter, littekens, tatoeages. Steeds scherper zien we hoe de mens samenleeft met de natuur, haar in een vorm dwingt, maar ook omarmt. De mens vindt hier een plek in natuur. Komt er tot rust.

Zoals de hand van de mens steeds evidenter wordt in het landschap, zo is de fotograaf

zelf steeds dwingender aanwezig in het werk. Van documentair en registrerend, komen we bij zeer persoonlijk beeld waarin de natuur is gemanipuleerd om een creatieve visie tot uiting te brengen. Bergen die de grilligheid van de beurskoersen volgen. Werk dat teruggrijpt op de taal van de schilderkunst. Werk dat het onzichtbare, sublieme in de natuur zichtbaar maakt.

De lange tocht door en rond hoofdlocatie Museum Belvédère – in nevenlocaties zijn nog

andere hoofdstukken te zien – mondt uit in landschap dat volledig aan gedachten is ontsproten. De natuur, waaraan de mens ooit met huid en haar was overgeleverd, blijkt tot de laatste pixel maakbaar te zijn. De fotograaf, chroniqueur van het moment, blijkt in staat herinneringen te creëren aan momenten die nooit hebben bestaan. We zien en ervaren exotische, buitenaardse werelden waarover we slechts kunnen fantaseren. Loskomend van de wereld die we kennen, tuimelen we over de rand van ruimte en tijd. Maar ook het contact met die volkomen artificiële natuur is een ervaring die verdiept, verrijkt en ons confronteert met onszelf. Een tegelijk treurige en hoopgevende gedachte: als alle natuur is verdwenen, zullen we in het virtuele domein het contact met natuur kunnen blijven opzoeken. En misschien zelfs iets terugvinden van de angsten die hoorden bij de wildernis van lang, lang geleden.

Hoe verder ik van het bos van mijn jeugd verwijderd ben geraakt, hoe mythischer dat bos is

geworden. Ik besef dat het nooit exact heeft bestaan zoals ik het me herinner. Zo lijkt mijn herinnering op het landschap in deze foto’s, die tegelijk de werkelijkheid aanraken, vertekenen en overstijgen.

auke hulst 15

the enchanted forest

Mysterious, unfathomable and timeless. We lose ourselves in the overgrowth, wandering in a world which by turns is serene and sinister. Here man is only a nonentity, out of his element. This is a primeval landscape that appeals to primeval instincts. Mysterieus, ondoordringbaar en tijdloos. We gaan op in de begroeiing; zwervend door een wereld die afwisselend sereen en sinister is. Hier is de mens slechts figurant en ogenschijnlijk verdwaald. Een oerlandschap dat appelleert aan oerinstincten. 17

safe haven Narrations about nature that should be a safe place to connect to.

Being There & Then

96 Goos van der Veen | The Skiable Landscape 98 Marco Vernaschi | Biophilia 60

Man and nature as an apparently harmonious dyad. The landscape is open and safe, in part designed by man, who in turn seeks rest and recreation there. This is landscape as a museum, a playground, a canvas on which we paint the intimate stories of our lives - although that landscape can also sometimes hide a tainted past. De mens en de natuur als ogenschijnlijk harmonieuze twee-eenheid. Een open en veilig landschap, deels vormgegeven door mensen, die er recreĂŤren en tot rust komen. Het landschap als museum, speeltuin en als canvas waarop we de intieme verhalen van onze levens schilderen, ook al verbergt dat landschap soms een besmet verleden. 61

inspiration Nature as a source of inspiration, for artists that manipulate either theirwork or nature itself

Nature: the source of inspiration for the artist, who manipulates the image, nature itself, or both. Here we see a diverse selection of work from photographers who stretch the creative and evocative possibilities of landscape art to the limits. De natuur als inspiratiebron voor kunstenaars die het beeld, de natuur of zelfs beide manipuleren. Een diverse selectie werk van fotografen die de creatieve en suggestieve mogelijkheden van de landschapskunst tot het uiterste hebben opgerekt. 101

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into the unknown The invisible world, from macro to fictional and extraterrestrial

Unseen nature made visible. From the microscopic to the extraterrestrial, we are fascinated with what lies beyond our familiar world. We travel through space and time, through dreams and narratives, on the borders of fact and fiction. De ongeziene natuur zichtbaar gemaakt. Van het microscopische tot het buitenaardse, we zijn gefascineerd door wat voorbij de bekende wereld ligt. Een reis door ruimte en tijd, door dromen en verhalen, op het grensvlak van feit en fictie. 143

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the urban jungle About how men, after moving to the city in search of prosperity, takes nature with him

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Karin Borghouts | Through the Looking Glass

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Ignasi Cunill | Urban Landscapes

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Erwan Fichou | Miradors

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Eric Jan van de Geer | Private Landscape II

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Kate Greene | Anomalous Phenomena

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Jonathan Groeneweg | The Nature of Urbanity

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Sabine Haubitz & Stefanie Zoche | Tropical Island

200 Knibbeler/Wetzer | Typologie

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Christophe Maout | Printemps

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Jamie Maxtone-Graham | The Desiring Garden

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Ardine Nelson | Green Spaces

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Yan Preston | Forest

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Irina Rozovsky | In Plain Air

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Traer Scott | Natural History

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Andy Sewell | The Heath

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Anastasia Taylor-Lind | Gaza Zoos

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Kurt Tong | Memories, Dreams; Interrupted

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Graeme Williams | Objects of Reminiscence

Enclaves of green make the urban environment more liveable. From garden plots to parks, from growing your own food to a single house plant, we draw the landscape into the city. Artificial or not, it appeals to a deep desire. Groene enclaves maken de stedelijke omgeving leefbaarder. Van tuintjes tot parken, van een eigen voedselvoorziening tot een enkele kamerplant, we trekken het landschap de stad binnen. Kunstmatig of niet, het appelleert aan een diep verlangen. 185

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untamed Menâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s attempts of cultivating nature can be dwarfed by the raw power of natural disasters

224 Sonja Braas | The Quiet of Dissolution 226 Alejandro Chaskielberg | Turkana 228 Sumit Dayal | Vanishing Islands 230 James Whitlow Delano | Living with Volcanos:

Giving Life and Taking it

Man has tamed nature and cultivated it according to his own insights, but the total domination of nature remains an illusion. Hurricanes, tsunamis, forest fires and earthquakes remind us of that. Although nature lets itself be moulded, it is capable of unleashing forces against which manâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s strength pales. De mens heeft de natuur getemd en naar eigen inzicht gecultiveerd. Maar haar volledig domineren blijft een illusie. Dat bewijzen orkanen, tsunamiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s, bosbranden en aardbevingen. Al laat ze zich door de mens kneden, de natuur is tot krachten in staat waarbij de mens verbleekt. 223

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appendix The Harmony Between Man and Heaven Experimental Landscape from China Guest curator Alfred Dong shows a selection of experimental landscapes by artists from China, the land of his birth. Gastcurator Alfred Dong toont een selectie experimentele landschappen van kunstenaars uit zijn geboorteland China.

Landscape photography is deeply influenced by Chinaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s traditional landscape art, with its iconic compositions and emphasis on the harmony between man and nature. In contrast, in the experimental photography that curator Alfred Dong has assembled it is precisely the difficult marriage between tradition and modernity, and feelings of loss and confusion, that are central. De Chinese landschapsfotografie is sterk beĂŻnvloed door de traditionele landschapskunst, met haar iconische composities en nadruk op de harmonie tussen mens en natuur. In de experimentele fotografie die curator Alfred Dong samenbracht staan juist het moeizame huwelijk tussen traditie en moderniteit, en gevoelens van verlies en verwarring centraal. 249

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the photographers

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the enchanted forest 018 Jane Fulton Alt The Burn | 2008-2012

024 Patricia van de Camp My Own Wilderness | 2011-2012 In our fast-changing world we seldom come in contact

During a controlled prairie fire, Jane Fulton Alt observes,

with real nature. Nature has become a museum piece,

there comes a moment when life and death are not

animals are exhibited, fenced in and protected by laws. In

competing forces, but parts of one all-embracing process.

her images Patricia van de Camp reminds us of the lost

The start of her long-term project THE BURN coincided

intimacy between man and nature. Mankind longs to return

with the diagnosis and treatment of her sister’s cervical

to a symbiotic relationship with nature, but the bitter reality

cancer. The parallels are evident: just as the prairie fire kills

is that we are more likely to come into contact with a dead

unwanted vegetation to give other plants a chance to grow,

animal than a living one.

chemotherapy kills unwanted cells to create room for

healthy ones. This cycle was the inspiration for THE BURN.

Netherlands, 1969) switched over to the arts. She studied at

the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam and the Kolding

In her work Jane Fulton Alt (United States, 1951)

After studying law, Patricia van de Camp (The

investigates vast themes like love, loss and spirituality. She

Königliche Dänisch academy. Since 2007 she has devoted

produced the book Look and Leave: Photographs and Stories

herself entirely to photography and art.

from New Orleans’s Lower Ninth Ward (2009), and in 2011 was honoured with the Photo District News Curator’s Choice Award. Fulton Alt lives and works in Chicago.

026 Ellie Davies Come with Me | 2011 In COME WITH ME Ellie Davies investigates the relation

020 Kim Boske I Go Walking In Your Landscape | 2010

between landscapes and the artist, and the way in which

How do we experience time and space? Kim Boske

underscores that our perception of nature is coloured

records the landscape from different vantage points and

by our cultural baggage. Davies photographed paths of

at different moments. By combining these, layer over

artificial materials meandering through the woods, paths

layer, into one image she tries to establish the essential

which enable her to be a part of nature, and which shape

quality of the changing reality; a quality that is lost in a

nature. Her work is a new approach to the role that art has

simple, frozen image. In this way she investigates how our

traditionally had in the attribution of meaning to nature, and

own movement through time and space influences our

the creation of myths.

perspective on the world.

the London College of Communication. Among the prizes she

Kim Boske (The Netherlands, 1978) studied at the Royal

the landscape helps form identity. In addition, the series

Ellie Davies (Great Britain, 1976) studied photography at

Academy for the Visual Arts in The Hague. Her work bears

has received are the Lens Culture International Exposure Award

witness to her fascination with the passage of time. Boske is

and the Charmian Adams Award, and she took first prize in the

always in search of the hidden reality behind the visual world.

Fine Art Landscape category of the Prix de la Photographie

She seeks to capture the transitory and render it palpable.

Paris. Davies lives and works in London.

022 JG Bryce Sacred Forests and Jungles| 2012

028 David Farrell The Long Grass | 2001-2005

SACRED FORESTS contains a series of portraits of sacred

The photographer David Farrell describes his series

woodlands all around the world. As a result of their sacred

THE LONG GRASS – originally a part of a wider work

status they also are rare bastions of biodiversity. They are

entitled Close Encounters – as a collection of ‘post-coital

places where scientists can still find the kingdom of nature

landscapes’.They are autonomous, non-specific sexual

intact, and are in shrill contrast to the polluted and over-

images that afford the viewer the freedom to project onto

whelmingly complex world in which we live.

them any erotic image which enters his or her mind.

JG Bryce (United States, 1974) studied Italian literature

David Farrell (Ireland, 1961) was trained as a chemist,

in Venice and Chinese in Beijing, before completing his studies

but is presently a photographer and photography instructor. He

in Liberal Arts at Wake Forest University, in Winston-Salem,

received the 2004 European Publishers Award for Photography

North Carolina. Among the places he has lived are Hong Kong,

for his book Innocent Landscapes. He took part in the

Singapore, Tokyo, Shanghai and New York – and he presently

European Eyes on Japan project and produced the multimedia

lives in the capital of Taiwan, Taipei. He has twice received

film Crow together with the composer Benjamin Dwyer. Since

Picture of the Year Awards, and also the Ozzie Gold Award for

2009 he has once again been following the search for the

his work.

missing from the Northern Irish conflict, in the places that he had previously recorded in Innocent Landscapes.

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030 Doug Fogelson Exit Eden | 2012

034 Andrej Glusgold Black Forest | 2011-2012

While on the one hand we wrestle with our feelings

After Andrej Glusgold photographed a sunset in the

regarding the loss of nature and climate change, we still

mountains of Saxony in 2009, he became lost in the forest.

foster strong ideas about the beauty of the landscape.

Surrounded by darkness and without a pocket torch, he

Doug Fogelson photographs luxuriant nature to then

was forced to spend the night in the woods. For the first

bleach out the emulsion of the film, bit by bit. The tints

time in his life he experienced the forest just as men had

gradually disappear – first the yellow, then magenta, then

for thousands of years: as a threatening place. He seeks to

cyan – in a metaphor for the way our natural environment

bring that sense across in his series BLACK FOREST.

is gradually crumbling. Fogelson indirectly poses critical

questions about the creative and destructive role of man.

Union, 1968) emigrated to West Germany in 1981, where

At the same time he demonstrates that change – even if it

he studied at the Art Academy in Bremen in the 1990s.

is destructive – can result in great beauty.

His work has appeared in various, primarily French and

German magazines, and has been seen at the Rencontres

Doug Fogelson (United States, 1970) took his BA in Fine

Born and raised in Moldavia, Andrej Glusgold (Soviet

Arts at the School of the Art Institute in Chicago. He has been

Photographiques d’Arles and other festivals. Presently he is

active as a photographer and artist since 1996, and in 2001

professor of photography at the University of Applied Arts in

was included in their ‘30 Under Thirty’ list of the most promising

Berlin.

young photographers by the American photo magazine Photo District News. He is the founder and director of Front Forty Press, a publisher that specializes in artistic books.

036 Samuel Hense Petits & Grand | 2010-2011 Every summer urban children, satiated with pre-

032 Julia Fullerton-Batten Teenage Stories | 2006

programmed computer games, retreat into nature to build

For teenage girls the years of adolescence are a complex

the canopy of leaves they indulge in stories that go far

and sensitive period in which they learn to see themselves

enough to be exciting, but not so far that the adult world

in the context of society and wrestle with their identity.

gets worried. After a time they leave these huts behind,

It is a time of psychological and physical change. Julia

small monuments to the nostalgic, wild days of childhood.

Fullerton-Batten photographed teenage girls in a landscape

setting that was strange to them, and asked them to pose.

freelance photographer since 2008. He studied at the School for

The result is a measure of the discomfort that is inseparably

Photojournalism and the School for the Fine Arts, both in Paris.

linked with this phase of life.

In his work he investigates how the traces that man, nature, or

simply time leave behind control our memories of places.

The British photographer Julia Fullerton-Batten (West

castles and palaces of branches and brushwood. Under

Samuel Hense (France, 1973) has been active as a

Germany, 1970) grew up in Germany and the United States. Reading, England, and has been a freelance photographer

038 Sana Khan Tree Series | 2011

since 2001. She twice won a John Kobal Award, and in 2005

The work of the photographer Sana Khan always has a

and 2007 she was honoured by the Royal Photographic

dreamy quality. In her TREE SERIES we see people in

Society in England. Her work is included in the permanent

stylized landscapes whose central feature are trees. There

collections of the National Portrait Gallery and the Musée de

is always the suggestion of loneliness and inadequacy. In

l’Elysée in Lausanne.

that sense the images are more psychological portraits,

032 Snails, 2006

than real situations.

033 Girl with birds in New Forest, 2007

She studied at the Berkshire College of Art and Design in

Sana Khan (Pakistan, 1987) studied photography

at Beaconhouse National University in Lahore and at the University of Westminster, England. She has had a solo show at the Alhamra National Art Gallery in Lahore, en contributed to various group exhibitions in Great Britain and Pakistan. 038 (left) This photograph is from the perception of a child, how an innocent, untouched mind feels during his or her tender years of growing up. More as an observer, the young mind feels limitless in his or her imagination of the world around them while in reality feeling

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powerless.

to achieve life desired. The ladder against the tree

042 Simon Menner Camouflage | 2009

signifies the long trailing steps one climbs to try and

The intention of a sniper is to remain unseen. Within the

reach a desired purpose. The cloud symbolizing a

framework of his research into the nature of terror and the

dream, an endeavour that must be attained, yet it is

mechanisms that we employ to arouse feelings of anxiety

too translucent to hold the weight of my aspirations.

and uncertainty, Simon Menner (with the assistance of

The dead tree, the sulking man, the translucent cloud,

the German army) photographed snipers hiding in the

they all denote failed attempts of reaching a desired

landscape. Look carefully and you will see them – their

axis of existence.

weapons aimed at the camera – and thus at you.

038-039 This photograph is a representation of a struggle

039 (right) The last of the trees series, this photograph is

Simon Menner (West Germany, 1978) took his Masters

the epiphany of the reality of a dream. The man

of Fine Arts at the Universität der Künste in Berlin, where

personifies the state of hard work that should glorify

he also received the Master Student Award. His work has

the attainment of the dream, yet is surrounded by

appeared in many German magazines and newspapers, but

gloominess and disillusionment, while he sits on a

also in The New Yorker, NRC Handelsblad and Le Monde. His

tree in a state of bafflement. He’s still bound by ropes

book The Uncanny Familiar. Images of Terror appeared in 2011.

and ties that seem meaningless despite of everything the vicious circle of life where disdain and defeat

044 Polixeni Papapetrou Haunted Country | 2006

prevail.

A recurrent theme in Australian films, literature, art and his-

lost and gained. It is a place of ambiguity of thoughts;

tory is the child who disappears into the bush. In contrast

040 Paula McCartney Bird Watching | 2003-2008

to European fairy tales, in which the wilderness can also

Any time that Paula McCartney walks in the woods she has

tion, the Australian bush is only a place of curse and doom.

an eye for the birds. But she never tried to capture them

HAUNTED COUNTRY consists of images that are staged

with her camera: the birds were too far away and too flighty

at places where children of colonists once disappeared.

in their movements to arrive at a satisfactory composition.

Both literally and metaphorically they touch on the vulner-

She solved that problem in BIRD WATCHING by placing

ability of children and the ambivalent relation Australians

handmade songbirds in the landscape and photographing

have with their merciless landscape.

these ‘upgraded’ landscapes. The birds are like jewels that

enrich the landscape, even as the landscape gives added

as a lawyer, but in the 1990s transferred her interests to

value to the birds.

photography. She took her Master of Arts at RMIT University,

and earned a doctorate at Monash University, both in

Paula McCartney (United States, 1971) took her Masters

be a refuge, and a place of self-discovery and transforma-

Polixeni Papapetrou (Australia, 1960) was trained

in photography at the San Francisco Art Institute. She had

Melbourne. She has made her reputation with intimate work in

previously studied photography at Empire State College and

which, in a guarded manner, the world of children is central.

the International Center of Photography in New York. Her ornithology.

046 Rattana Vandy Bomb Ponds | 2009

040 Aqua Tanager, 2004

With regularity the serene landscape of Cambodia betrays

041 Long-tailed Waxbill, 2005

its bloody history. One example of that are what are called

work is primarily concerned with the fields of landscape and

‘bomb ponds’, water features that have formed in the craters that were created by the illegal American bombardment during the Vietnam War. Rattana Vandy’s experience of the landscape has been coloured by it. The sound of the violence, and with it of Cambodia history, has died away, but in that silence Vandy hears it yet. That makes it difficult to enjoy the real sounds of nature.

In his work Rattana Vandy (Cambodia, 1980) tries to ex-

pose the hidden realities of his country. His work was nominated for the Sovereign Asian Art Prize, and included in the Prix Pictet publication Earth. Rattana is a co-founder of the artists’ collective Stiev Selepak (Art Rebels), and opened the SaSa Gallery, the first artist-managed gallery in Phnom Penh.

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048 Nick Rochowski Liminal Points | 2008-2011

building of New South Wales. He has published eight books,

The Latin word limen means ‘boundary’ or ‘threshold’. We

Photographic Prize.

and received the prestigious NSW Parliamentary Plein Air

encounter the liminal everywhere in our lives. In LIMINAL a boundary between then and now, between reality and

054 Agnes Thor Untitled | 2010

fantasy. He returned to Penn Wood, Buckinghamshire,

In her work Agnes Thor creates worlds that fall into the

to the vivid fantasies of his childhood, in a journey out of

twilight zone between reality and fiction. This is because

the ordinary. The series was inspired by films from the late

she photographs both actual, and small, staged events.

1970s and early 1990s, and the work of the magic realist

Her Nathalie: Southwood Sequence is a portrait of a utopia,

writer J.G. Ballard and manga artist and writer Katsuhiro

as described in Celtic myths. Aurora Borealis is inspired by

Otomo, among others. For LIMINAL POINTS Rochowski

Norse myths, and takes place in a world where trees, stones

worked together with the illustrator Greg Haynes and music

or mist can suddenly be transformed into mythic beings.

producer Deepsea.

UNTITLED presents a selection from these series, which are

indirect portraits of Thor herself.

POINTS Nick Rochowski, mindful of Plato, demolishes

Nick Rochowski (Great Britain, 1981) studied at the

London College of Printing. In addition to this own projects he

works on assignments from clients in the world of architecture

the School of Photography at the University of Gotenburg. Her

Agnes Thor (Sweden, 1986) studied photography at

and design, cultural institutions and the creative industry. In

work is deeply influenced by her childhood in rural Sweden.

2011 he founded Rokov Publishing op. Among the awards

She has published the monographs Aurora Borealis, Pleasure

Rochowski has received are an IPA Award and the Silver Book

First and Mad Rush. Thor lives and works in New York.

Award from the Prix de la Photographie, Paris.

050 Gregor Schuster Blackwood | 2012 – ongoing

056 Tessa Verder The Day the World Whispered | ongoing During the Industrial Revolution German romantic painters

Anyone following Little Red Riding Hood’s footsteps into

– Caspar David Friedrich in the lead – combined elements

the deepest, darkest parts of the forest enters the theatre

from different landscapes to their heart’s content in order

of the imagination. Near and far, dark and light, and the

to expose the sublime and approach ‘true feeling’. A mass

colour spectrum all blur, so that we end up in a transcen-

of rocks from Rügen could therefore end up next to a tree

dent state, in a dream world and the subconscious. Gregor

from Dresden. In this series Tessa Verder puts trees from

Schuster invites us to become creatures in that forest.

paintings into her photographed landscapes. She too no

longer shuns combinations, now that man once again

Gregor Schuster (Germany, 1974) took a degree from

the Lette-Schule of Photography in Berlin. He was co-curator

appears to be in search of the restoration of contact with

of the Darmstädter Tage der Fotografie. Together with the artist

nature.

Daniel Wetzel he produced the series Supermodels, which was

to be seen this year at Les Rencontre d’Arles and the Palm

for Photography in Haarlem and studied at the Rietveld

Springs Photo Festival.

Academy. Her work, which is included in the collections of

Tessa Verder (Netherlands, 1967) attended the Academy

the Frans Hals Museum and the Felix Nussbaum Haus in

052 Peter Solness Illuminated Landscape | 2009-ongoing

Osnabrück, among other institutions, has been shown in the

Peter Solness specializes in night photography. By pho-

and worked in Berlin.

tographing in the dark, with long exposure times, each

056-057 Day 1, 2009

landscape becomes a painting of light, in which the sparse

057 (right) Day 16, 2012

natural light becomes mixed with the light of street lamps. The work is an ensemble of the immediacy of photography and the weighed sensibility of painting.

Peter Solness (Australia, 1958) began his career in the

1980s as a photographer for The Sydney Morning Herald and the National Times. He lived and worked both in urban environments and in the vast Australian outback. Among the institutions with his work in their collections are the National Library of Australia, the Museum of Sydney, and the Parliament 264

Netherlands and other countries. Since 2006 Verder has lived

058 Benoît Vollmer Dépositions | 2010-2011

2006 the pair received a Fulbright Scholarship Award for their project The Searchers, about Western pilgrims in India.

Céret, a village in the French Pyrenees, was once popular his stay there Benoît Vollmer turned his back on both

066 Jon Cazenave Amalur | 2007-2012

the realistic and the consciously disorienting traditions in

The Spanish photographer Jon Cazenave was born in the

landscape photography. In their place, he sought refuge in

Basque country, a region with a strong thirst for autonomy.

the abstractions of early 20th century painting. He looked

The Basque country is set off from the rest of Spain by

for the edges of the cultivated plots, and undertook an

mountains, permitting the growth of a vital language and

attempt to capture an element in his images which is

culture. In its landscape, Cazenave says, nature blends

omnipresent, but impossible to grasp: the unceasing wind

with history and legend. The result is a mythic, magical land

of the Pyrenees.

– the subject of Cazenave’s photography. By humanizing

trees and animals, he creates a symbolic landscape that

with painters like Picasso, Matisse and Braque. During

Benoît Vollmer (France, 1983) was trained at the

École de Photographie de Vevey, has has exhibited his work

lays bare the soul of the Basques.

frequently, especially in France and the Netherlands. He is

represented by Galerie Van Kranendonk in The Hague.

economist and worked in the financial world for five years

safe haven

Jon Cazenave (b. Spain, 1978) was trained as an

before he devoted himself to the study of photography in 2006. He participated in workshops given by the Norse photographer

062 Korrie Besems Dutch Mountains | 2010-2011

Pep Bonet and Magnum photographer Paolo Pellegrin. In 2008

The Netherlands has many ‘man-made’ hills which can be

better fathom his own country.

used for recreation by skiers, mountain bikers, golfers and

066 Amalur 2, 2009

hikers. Korrie Besems recorded them. With one exception

067 (top) Amalur 4, 2011

– SnowWorld, which arose on the spoils heap of a former

067 (second) Amalur 5, 2012

coal mine – these hills conceal former refuse tips, which

067 (third) Amalur 8, 2010

now provide the opportunity to develop activities that would

067 (down) Amalur 10, 2011

he decided to focus on the Basque question, in an attempt to

otherwise not be obvious possibilities in the flat Netherlands. mental design at the St. Joost Academy for Art and Design Den

068 Venetia Dearden Eight Days | 2011

Bosch. Her book Verzonnen Verleden was nominated for a Dutch

Just as pilgrims flock together at holy places, where they

Doc Award in 2010, and in 2009 was in the running at PHoto-

meet one another and forge bonds, the festival calender

España in Madrid in the best photo book category. Besems’ work

brings together large groups of young people. During

is to be found in the collections of several museums.

festivals, Venetia Dearden says, young people find their

062-063 Zoetermeer, Buytenpark/Snowworld, 2011

‘tribe’ or ‘community’. EIGHT DAYS is the result of a

Korrie Besems (the Netherlands, 1961) studied monu-

personal journey that the photographer undertook in 2010

064 Sasha Bezzubov Albedo Zone | 2012

with a group of her friends, during a road trip through

The series ALBEDO ZONE is comprised of black and white

far from the well-ordered everyday world’.

photographs of glacial ice and glacier water. They were

made in Alaska, consistent with a scientific system that

anthropology a the University of Edinburgh, a course that

calculates the degree of reflection of solar energy from the

awakened her wanderlust. On her journeys of discovery she

terrain, a technique that is important to the study of climate

began to record the world that she encountered in work that

change. This reflective capacity is termed ‘albedo’. Ice

was spontaneous and emotionally charged. She has published

reflects warmth, whereas water absorbes it, a mechanism

the books Glastonbury, Another Stage (2010) and Eight

that strengthens warming effects. Bezzubov made silver

Days (2011). In 2011 she became a member of the VII Photo

gelatine prints of his photos, which gives the original prints

Agency.

a delicate beauty, which can not be duplicated in reproduc-

068

tion.

068-069 Woman in my Arms, 2010

California and Nevada. They entered an ‘alternative reality, Venetia Dearden (Great Britain, 1975) studied

(left) Sun Burst, 2010

The Ukranian Sasha Bezzubov (Soviet Union, 1965)

studied at the Yale University School of Art. In addition to doing his own photography, since 2002 he has frequently worked together with the American photographer Jessica Sucher. In

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070 Bela Doka The Sundays of Life | 2010

074 Stuart Franklin Narcissus | 2009-ongoing

How do you photograph those moments which, although

Narcissus, a figure from Greek mythology, saw his own

not dramatic or spectacular and moving, are nonetheless

reflection in the water, and fell in love with himself. During

at the heart of our enjoyment of life? Bela Doka found the

an exploration of the Norwegian landscape Stuart Franklin

answer in and around the rural home of his girlfriend’s

noted that he was seeking visual points of reference. His

family. This is a world of sunny luncheon tables, a

mind descried the shapes of eyes, trolls and icons in tree

reinvigorating swim in the river, wandering through open

bark, clumps of grass and water features. They were

fields, and activities that are entirely unconnected with

reflections of his own mind, which provided him with a

deadlines and production schedules.

gateway to reveal an unfamiliar landscape.

Bela Doka (Hungary, 1969) has shown his work in

Stuart Franklin (Great Britain, 1956) studied photography

venues including Paris Photo and PHotoEspaña. He won the

at the West Surrey College of Art and Design and geography at

Hungarian press photography prize three times, and was a

Oxford University, from which he received a doctorate in 2001.

finalist for a Sony World Photography Award and the London

He has been a member of Magnum Photos since 1989, and from

Street Photography Awards. His book The Sundays of Life

2006 to 2009 was chairman of that prestigious photo agency.

appeared in 2010.

He photographed the rebellion on Tiananmen Square, and

070 Bence’s Bath, 2007

won several World Press Awards. During the 2009 Noorderlicht

071 Relaxing, 2006

International Photo Festival he was curator of Point of No Return,

072 Rena Effendi Liquid Land | 2006-2010

074 Self portrait. Black Forest, 2009

a controversial exhibition of photography from the Gaza Strip. 075 Waterfall over Holsvatnet I, 2010

Thanks to the industrialization during the Soviet era and of the most seriously polluted sites in the world. On the

076 David Galjaard Concresco | 2012

Apsheron peninsula, which projects out into the Caspian

Fearing an invasion of his country, under his regime the

Sea, the ground exudes a toxic vapour, while oil seeping to

Albanian Communist leader Enver Hoxha had about

the surface makes the soil infertile. Rena Effendi conceived

750,000 bunkers built. Strangely enough, the effect was

LIQUID LAND together with her father, a dissident

an increasing sense of insecurity among the population.

entomologist who was able to collect 90,000 butterflies

Twenty years after the fall of Communism only outsiders

from the Soviet Union. Images of the colourful but dead

still have an eye for the relics of the paranoid past. The

creatures interact powerfully with those of Apsheron’s

way in which the bunkers are disappearing, or being

polluted soil.

repurposed for entirely new uses, affords an insight into the

transformation process in the poorest country in Europe.

contamination from its oil industry, Azerbaijan has a number

The Azerbaijani Rena Effendi (Soviet Union, 1977) began

photographing in 2001, and since then has won many prizes,

including Magnum Foundation and Sony awards. She focuses

Documentary Photography at the Royal Academy for the Visual

primarily on the effect that the oil industry has had on life in her

Arts in The Hague. Among the publications where his work has

own country. She traced the route of a 1700 kilometre pipeline

appeared are the NRC Handelsblad, nrc.next and Nieuwe Revu.

for her first book, Pipe Dreams: A Chronicle of Lives along the

His work is included in the collections of the Rijksmuseum in

Pipeline. In 2011 she was honoured by the Dutch Prince Claus

Amsterdam, and the municipal archives of Amersfoort and The

Fund for the way in which she ‘has recorded the social impact

Hague.

of unrestrained, profit-driven “development”. 072 (above) Papilio machaon L. Habitat: Baku and the

Absheron Peninsula, 2010.

072 (below) Oil puddle. Balakhani village, Baku, 2010. 073 (above) Gas mask in an oil puddle. Balakhani village,

Baku, 2010.

073 (below) Pararge adrastoides Bienert. Nearly extinct.

266

Habitat Talish mountains of Lenkoran, 2010.

David Galjaard (The Netherlands, 1983) studied

078 John Brinton Hogan Vacation | 2004-2009

From its earliest days the West of the United States has

briefly for The Independent before going to work as a freelancer.

been a dream that had to be sold. In his series VACATION

Since 2000 he has worked alone on long-term projects, and

John Brinton Hogan deals with the ways in which art and

for magazines and commercial clients. He won a World Press

media have shaped the myth of the West. He shows us

Photo award and received a W. Eugene Smith Fellowship and

that everywhere there are places where vast vistas can be

Churchill Fellowship for his project on Indian widows.

Kalpesh Lathigra (Great Britain, 1971) studied

photojournalism at the London College of Printing, and worked

experienced, just as they were before the arrival of man. them, and the illusion is shattered.

084 Lola Reboud The Ephemeris | 2011

While the Arab Spring dominated the media and conversa-

But catch sight of the infrastructure that now intrudes on John Brinton Hogan (United States, 1963) is self-

trained. He has taken part in exhibitions in his own land, Japan,

tions on the street, in the Moroccan city of Tangier Lola

Denmark and other countries, and was twice artist in residence

Reboud was photographing young people who gathered

at the Center for Land Use Interpretation in Wendover, Utah. He

in parks, gardens and on the outskirts of the city during

lives in San Diego, California.

Ramadan. From these various places she created one

078-079

utopian Garden of Eden. All the encounters she recorded

Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming, 2005

were as transitory as the season in which they took place,

080 Britta Isenrath Parts per Million | 2010

and given the political situation, paradoxical in their gentle-

The phrase ‘parts per million’ refers to the proportion of

that give the positions of astronomical objects in the sky.

one element to the whole of the compound of which it is

These tables sugest constant movements, just like the lives

part. Isenrath made the series with the same title in August,

of these young people change constantly.

2010, several months after an explosion on the Deepwater

Horizon oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico spewed hundreds

the École Nationale Supérieure d’Arts, the National School

of thousands of barrels of oil into the water. Because

of Decorative Art and the Sorbonne, all in Paris. She did an

access to the heavily polluted coastal areas of Louisiana,

internship at Magnum, where she assisted Elliott Erwitt and

Mississippi, Alabama and Florida was restricted, Isenrath

Alec Soth. Presently she is working with various media and

decided to photograph the beautiful beaches which were

non-governmental organizations, and focusing on her own

still accessible. The barely visible clean-up crews and their

long-term projects.

ness. Reboud derived the title of the series from the tables

Lola Reboud (France, 1982) studied photography at

materials disrupt the idyll.

Super Dry as her graduation project. In 2008 she was among

086 Misha de Ridder Dune | 2006 Solstice | 2011

the organizers of Galerie Flut in Bremen. A year later she was a

With SOLSTICE the photographer Misha de Ridder seeks

co-founder of the art collective Kill Your Darlings.

nothing less than to record the sublimity of nature. For him

Britta Isenrath (West Germany, 1979) graduated from

the University of the Arts at Bremen in 2010, with her series

it is not a matter of reducing nature at a saccharine picture

082 Kalpesh Lathigra Lost in the Wilderness | 2008

post card, but rather of laying bare its various emotional

The impressive landscape of the American Midwest was

De Ridder sought echoes of the past in the landscape

the backdrop for genocide during the second half of the

of today, in this case in the Kennemer Dunes of North

19th century. Countless Native American tribes were driven

Holland. With his work De Ridder tries to make something

from their land, exterminated or confined to reservations by

which is pre-eminently individual, namely the experience of

a duplicitous federal government. Kalpesh Lathigra pho-

a landscape, accessible for viewers.

tographed the people and landscapes of the Pine Ridge

Reservation in South Dakota, since 1876 home to the

the Hogeschool voor de Kunsten in Utrecht, and has since

Oglala-Lakota Sioux. It is a place with massive problems:

published the photo books Sightseeing (2000), Wilderness

high unemployment, drug and alcohol abuse, obesity,

(2003), Dune (2011) and Abendsonne (2011). In his work De

dimensions, from the meditative to the sinister. In DUNE

Misha de Ridder (The Netherlands, 1971) studied at

domestic violence and a gang culture. But its people also

Ridder seeks to capture the fleeting and mysterious in nature.

maintain a proud culture.

086-087 Ivguvuovdi, 2011

267

088 Simon Roberts We English | 2009

and Morris regularly combine the images with objects,

Just as in his project MOTHERLAND, in WE ENGLISH

Simon Roberts investigates themes like identity and

and Edward Morris (United States, 1971) are known for their

memory. He travelled around through his native land in a

interdisciplinary and activist work, in which environmental

camper, photographing scenes of his countrymen engaged

questions play a large role. The project shown laid the

in recreational activities, presented in large format. Roberts

foundation for a wider collaborative effort involving over thirty

shows us a people who have a close bond with their local

artists, which under the name of The Canary Project seeks to

surroundings and the land. Anyone wanting to know what it

make the public more aware of climate change.

research data and video installations. The artist duo Susannah Sayler (United States, 1969)

means to be ‘English’ only has to look at the commonplace and the banal in English leisure activities.

Simon Roberts (Great Britain, 1974) studied Human

094 TAXI Being There & Then | 2012

Geography at the University of Sheffield and completed the

Each landscape has a character of its own, formed by an

photography course at Sheffield College. His work has been

interplay of shapes, textures, sounds, odours and light. It is

honoured with the Vic Odden Award and the Bright Spark

that character that makes it possible for us to feel a deep

Award. Roberts took the World Press Masterclass, and has

connection with nature. The artist duo TAXI were travelling

published the the photo books Motherland (2007) and We

with Gora, a little boy from the city, and by accident ended

English (2009).

up in an isolated landscape on the edge of a city. It was an entirely different landscape than Gora was used to. The

090 Matthieu Rytz Pachamama | 2011

emotions that he felt in that place at that moment are the

The goddess Pachamama – a name that literally translated

means ‘Mother Earth’ – plays a central role in the religion of

Roy Chowdhury (India, 1976) have worked together under the

many native peoples in South America. Their traditions also

name TAXI. Samaipati studied at the North Bengal University,

emphasize the direct relation between man and nature. This

the Birla Institute of Liberal Arts and the National Institute

connects with the scientific idea that all organisms and the

of Fashion Technology. Roy Chowdhury studied at Calcutta

non-organic environment (water, rocks, soil) are part of one

University. The pair work in various media, from photography

complex, integrated system. From this follows the idea that

and hand coloured photos to video, and have participated in

anyone who harms nature is committing a form of self-

various international exhibitions, including the Berlin Biënnale.

subject of BEING THERE & THEN. Since 2007 Suman Samaipati (India, 1975) and Sourav

mutilation. Rytz travelled into the Colombian Amazon rain Pachamama.

096 Goos van der Veen The Skiable Landscape | 2009-2012

With a few exceptions, almost all recreational interventions in

forest to photograph people who have not yet repudiated Matthieu Rytz (Switzerland, 1980) studied Visual

Anthropology at the Université de Montréal, and in 2008

the landscape date from after the Second World War. Notable

founded AnthropoGraphia, an organization devoted to

examples are the European ski resorts like Flaine and Avoriaz,

advancing human rights by means of telling visual stories.

which were designed in the 1960s and built according to a

In addition Rytz is artistic director of Productions Foton, a

clear plan. Other ski resorts were more Wild West operations,

non-profit organization for the promotion of documentary

as the proliferation of chalet-like buildings testified. In THE

photography. He lives and works in Montreal, Canada.

SKIABLE LANDSCAPE Goos van der Veen shows us the radically reshaped mountain landscape and its users.

092 Susannah Sayler & Edward Morris A History of The Future | 2005-ongoing

The photos in the series A HISTORY OF THE FUTURE were

in The Hague. As a photojournalist he has published in

shot at places where scientists are researching climate

de Volkskrant, Vrij Nederland and other periodicals. In addition,

change and seeking ways to minimize its effects or help

he has worked for various cultural institutions and commercial

us adapt to them. The serenity of these places contrasts

clients. As well as THE SKIABLE LANDSCAPE he has also done

radically with the violent consequences that climate change

the landscape series The Dutch Mountains and I Saw the Dead

has. Here it is not the individual image that tells the story,

Wherever I looked.

but the whole archive of images, in the larger context of the

096 Tignes (Espace Killy), Savoie, France, 2010

discourse on climate change. It is for this reason that Sayler

097 Avoriaz (Portes de Soleil), Haute Savoie, France, 2010

268

Goos van der Veen (Netherlands, 1958) received his

diploma in 1982 from the School for Photography and Fotonica

098 Marco Vernaschi Biophilia | 2011-ongoing

does tell us something about the psychology of perception. We can not look without assigning meaning, Bogaers says.

We live in a time of massive change, in which the social

The inner thoughts are exposed by the external world.

and economic structures created by man appear to be

inadequate. The resulting disorientation forces us to recon-

Academie voor Beeldende Vorming in Tilburg. In his work

sider our lives. Nature, if it is not the answer, can at least

he makes frequent use of found images – from picture post

be a refuge where people can set up new ways of living,

cards to family snapshots – that he appropriates in ways that

or simply draw the inspiration necessary for their reflection.

suggest new meanings.

Paul Bogaers (Netherlands, 1961) was trained at the

In BIOPHILIA Marco Vernaschi investigates our apparently series of personal experiences.

106 Juan Calle Cartographies Of Violence | 2010

In the West man has turned his back on nature, say Juan

instinctive urge to restore our bond with nature, based on a In 2012 Marco Vernaschi (Italy, 1973) was named

‘Ambassador of Italian Excellence in the World’ by the Italian

Calle. But that is different in Colombia. There the struggle

Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Culture, while TIME called him

for land is the basis for an unceasing cycle of violence

one of the most important contemporary artists. Among the

between the FARC guerrillas, paramilitaries, multinationals

prizes he has won are a World Press Photo, several PGB Photo

and the government, with defenceless citizens, farmers

Awards, the FUJIFILM Prize and a Sony Photo Award. His work

and minorities caught in the middle. In his collages Calle

has been seen in the Venice Biënnale and other venues.

transforms the landscape of Colombia into a metaphor for

inspiration

a history of conflict, exploitation and discrimination.

Juan Calle (Colombia, 1949) took courses at the New

102 Yasser Aggour The Hunted | 2010-ongoing

York Institute of Photography, and is the founder and director of

In 2010 Yasser Aggour began collecting photographs of

dedicated to preserving the culture of small communities. In his

hunting trophies and the proudly smiling hunters posing

strongly conceptual work Calle tries to transcend the visual and

with their dead prey. The images had a strange and morbid

create metaphors. Calle has often taught in Bogotá, and is the

allure. Rather than presenting them as objets trouvés,

mentor for various young Colombian photographers.

Aggour decided to manipulate them digitally, stripping

106 Good land, bad land

out the hunters. The images of the bodies of the animals,

107 Neighbors

the non-profit organization Corporación El Hormiguero, which is

isolated and contorted, are simultaneously poignant and and a memento mori.

108 Claire Dorn Colorfield | 2011-2012

With COLORFIELD Claire Dorn pays homage to the work

brutal, a cross between landscape photography, found art, Yasser Aggour (United States, 1972) studied at the

University of California, the London School of Economics

of the painter Mark Rothko (1903-1970), one of the leading

and Yale, where he took a degree in sculpture. His work is

figures in abstract expressionism. The variant that Rothko

characterized by a series of eclectic influences, from economics

practised is known as ‘color field painting’, for the large

and philosophy to conceptual and performance art. His

fields of flat, solid colour that it uses to be able to place

photography spurs the viewer to reflect on the nature of the

maximum emphasis on the colour itself. For Rothko the

medium, without surrendering any of its visual power.

color field was a means of rendering complex concepts in as simple a way as possible. In a similar way, Dorn is

104 Paul Bogaers Les Vacances de M. Rorschach | 2008-2012

seeking a powerful, abstract photography.

The Dutch photographer Paul Bogaers can regularly be

ETPA in Toulouse and art history at the Freie Universität, Berlin.

found at flea markets and second-hand stores. A number

Her photography is a mixture of the poetic and the concrete in

of years back he became intrigued by a kind of picture

the visual arts.

Claire Dorn (France, 1980) studied photography at the

post card which depicts a landscape that is reflected in water. Turn the image by 90 degrees, and it becomes an abstract blot, which is reminiscent of the ink blots in the Rorschach test, which for decades was a regular element in psychological screening. Although Rorschach’s theories are outdated, the instinctive reactions to these images

269

110 Peter Funch Triptychs | 2012

114 Carlos Irijalba Inercia | 2012

Peter Funch’s photographs have a surrealistic quality. In the

INERCIA is about the way in which reality is constructed

three-part work TRIPTYCHS we see a moment – but is it

by audiovisual media. In a time span of four minutes it

in fact one moment? Were these images manipulated and

plays games with the rhythm and narrative conventions

put together afterwards? Funch himself offers the viewer

of audiovisual renderings of ‘reality’. Just as the blink of

noting more to go on than a quote from the Japanese

an eye disrupts the continuity of time and space, a frame

writer Haruki Murakami: ‘That’s what the world is, after all:

isolates and freezes a precise moment and a precise place.

an endless battle of contrasting memories.’

The sum total of these moments forms the representation

of this putative reality, as contained in ‘the document’.

Peter Funch (Denmark, 1974) studied photojournalism at

the Danish School for Journalism. He was named artist of the

year at Dream Amsterdam 2009, for which he created a large

School of Arts, Basque Country University and the Universität

Carlos Irijalba (Spain, 1979) studied at the Pamploma

public photo installation. For the Danish pavilion at EXPO 2010

der Kunst in Berlin. His work has been seen in seven solo

in Shanghai he produced a series of large-scale works entitled

exhibitions in his own country, and in group exhibitions

Danish Diaries. Funch lives and works in New York.

internationally. In 2012 he received the Explum Young Spanish

110-111 (above) Life’s A Beach I, 2012

Art Prize.

110-111 (below) Life’s A Beach II, 2012

112 Toni Hafkenscheid Confabulation | 2007-2010

116 Scarlett Hooft Graafland Soft Horizons | 2004-2010 In SOFT HORIZONS, made in the highlands of Bolivia,

Nature, Toni Hafkenscheid tells us, almost always comes

Scarlett Hooft Graafland makes interventions in the land-

across as artificial. It is as if it has been transplanted directly

scape with the intention of abstracting or emphasizing ele-

from the model railway he has as a child. Hafkenscheid asso-

ments in that landscape. The photos, made over a period

ciates the North American landscape with the trees of cotton

of eight years, balance on the borders of photography, land

wool and cardboard mountains through which his trains

art and performance art, and regularly refer to art history.

used to run. In CONFABULATION he tries to give the real the

appearance of artificiality. For that he uses tilt-shift lenses,

at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in The Hague, and took

which, because he uses them the ‘wrong way around’, offer

her Masters in Fine Arts at the Parsons School of Design in

him the possibility of having only a small slice of the land-

New York. She was nominated for the Paul Huf Award and the

scape in sharp focus, leaving the rest of the image fuzzy.

German Börse Photography Prize, and won a PDN Photobook

Award in 2012 for her book Soft Horizons.

Toni Hafkenscheid (The Netherlands, 1959) studied at the

Scarlett Hooft Graafland (The Netherlands, 1973) studied

Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam, but decided to emigrate North America than in the land of his birth, a fact to which

118 Samnang Khvay Untitled | 2011

scores of group and solo exhibitions in Canada and the United

With his UNTITLED series Samnang Khvay fixes attention

States will testify.

on a development that is having a deep influence on the

112-113 Beach #5

urban planning of the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh and

113

the lives of thousands of poor families: the privatization and

to Canada shortly thereafter. His work is still better known in

(right) Hellsgate

filling of public lakes for the benefit of developers. Khvay distances himself from the traditional practice of documentary photography by photographing himself while he pours a bucket of sand over himself, a metaphor that is open to various interpretations.

Samnang Khvay (Cambodia, 1982) was trained as a

painter at the Royal University of Fine Arts in Phnom Penh, from which he graduated in 2006. His work has frequently been seen in his own country, but also in France and Japan, where he was artist in residence at the Tokyo Wonder Site. Khvay lives and works in Phnom Penh.

270

120 Hiroyuki Masuyama The Lost Works of Caspar David Friedrich | 2007-2009

landscape. ENTER THE GREAT WIDE OPEN lays bare

The Japanese photographer Hiroyuki Masuyama travelled

through Europe in the footsteps of the 19th century paint-

Photography at Concordia University in Montreal in 2012. In her

ers Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840) and J.M.W. Turner

work she investigates memories and identity, on the basis of

(1775-1851), who recorded their travels in romantic and

objects and archives. She was included in the book Front Line:

dramatic paintings, respectively. Masuyama made repro-

Interviews with International Contemporary Photo-base Artists,

ductions of these paintings, assembled from thousands of

and has shown her work at at Les Rencontres Internationales

photos that he took in the places that the painters had set

de la Photographie in Gaspésie, Canada, and at other venues.

elements of the Canadian identity that are still of importance a hundred years later. Aislinn Leggett (Canada, 1981) received her Bachelors in

down on canvas 160 years before. These photo montages new, contemporary dimension.

126 Wawi Navarroza Dominion | 2011

After her studio was completely destroyed by a storm,

are lit from the inside, giving these iconic artworks a whole Hiroyuki Masuyama (Japan, 1968) specialized in oil

painting and murals at the Tokyo National University of Fine

Wawi Navarroza developed a strong urge to photograph

Arts and Music. He continued his studies in Germany, where

volcanos. She ended up in Hawaii, where she was able

he visited the Art Academy in Düsseldorf and the Academy for

to confront the harshest, most destructive forces in wild

Media Art in Cologne. He has frequently exhibited his work in

nature. Is she planning to hoist the white flag in surrender,

Germany, and is still living and working in Düsseldorf.

or is she going to attempt to tame these formidable powers with a white sheet? And what sort of wilderness is it, if it

122 Michael Najjar High Altitude | 2009-2010

can be reduced to the limited scale of a photo?

In January, 2009, Michael Najjar stood on the top of

Salle University in Manilla and the International Center of

Aconcagua, the highest mountain in the world outside of

Photography in New York. In 2012 she took the European

Asia. The photographic material that he assembled there

Master of Fine Art in Photography at the Instituto Europeo

formed the basis for a series on the fluctuations in financial

di Design in Madrid. In 2011 she published the monograph

markets. Najjar visualized the indexes of the world’s most

Gracias Por Su Visita. Her work was previously seen during the

important stock exchanges and made virtual data tangible

Noorderlicht festival Another Asia.

Wawi Navarroza (Philippines, 1979) studied at De La

by giving it the form of serrated mountain tops. The work is virtual, a line which in the Exchanges – where virtual money

128 Loan Nguyen Météo et Phénomènes Naturels | 2007-2010

has become more important than the goods and firms that

Every day disturbing new reports about the changing

it is supposed to represent – has become blurred perhaps

climate arrive through the media. Glaciers are melting,

more than anywhere else.

deserts spreading, water shortages lead to political con-

flicts. The result, Loan Nguyen tells us, is a constant state

a metaphor for the thin line that separates the real and the

Michael Najjar (West Germany, 1966) is a pioneer.

His work is on the interface of photography and information

of agitation and anxiety. Her own anxiety was the starting

technology, of the past and future. By mixing realistic elements

point for a series in which she attributed divine powers

with imaginary creations, he forces us to see and think in new

to herself, to influence the world for the better. What she

ways. In 2008 his first large-scale retrospective was to be seen

shows us is of course impossible, but yet a striking and po-

in the Fotomuseum and in GEM in The Hague. In 2005, 2007

etic translation of the feeling that came over her thanks to

and 2011 he collaborated on the Noorderlicht festivals.

our incapacity to fundamentally deal climate problems.

Loan Nguyen (Switzerland, 1977) studied at the

124 Aislinn Leggett Enter The Great Wide Open | 2012

School of Applied Arts in Vevey, Switzerland, after which she

The way in which her forebears recorded the Canadian

photographers. In 2007 she published the book De retour,

landscape has been definitive for how Aislinn Leggett sees

in which she records her father’s return to Vietnam, eighteen

nature in her country. Using landscape photography from

years after his emigration to Switzerland.

joined POC (Piece of Cake), a network of young European

the beginning of the 20th century, as well as photos from her own family archive, Leggett composed scenes that give her the opportunity to resurrect the past within the

271

130 Meike Nixdorf In the Orbit of El Teide | 2010-2011

different original source. They are, De Ruijter observes, the

How much information – abstract or visual – can you

gather about a subject from one point of view? That ques-

School voor Fotografie and Fotonica in The Hague and the

tion was the point of departure for a series of photos of El

Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam. He has had

Teide, the largest volcano on the island of Tenerife. Meike

solo exhibitions in the Fries Museum, the Stedelijk Museum

Nixdorf recorded the volcano from different angles, so

Schiedam, and during Art Amsterdam, and was artist in

that each image reveals new aspects of the same object.

residence at Cemeti Art House in Yogyakarta, Indonesia) and at

On the one hand, these images are like the pieces of a

the Santa Fe Art Institute in New Mexico, in the United States.

equivalent of the photographic pixel. Gerco de Ruijter (Netherlands, 1961) studied at the

puzzle which form one whole; on the other, each image is autonomous.

Meike Nixdorf (West Germany, 1976) studied

136 Takeshi Shikama Silent Respiration of Forests | 2005-2011

photography and video at the International Center of

In Japan 70 percent of the land is covered by mountains

Photography in New York. Her work has been seen at

and forests. That possibly explains the intimate bond that

the Darmstadt Fotofestival, FotoFest Houston and in the

he has with the landscape, Takeshi Shikama notes. The

International Center of Photography, and has been acquired

photographer has the sense that the woods are calling him

for the Joaquim Paiva Collection of the Museu de Arte

in a telepathic manner – a feeling that he never had during

Contemporânea in Rio de Janeiro.

the decades that he lived in the megalopolis of Tokyo. His work reflects this new and mysterious relation.

132 Renhui Zhao As We Walked on Water | 2011

In the 1960s Singapore used the earth from its modest

interest to photography in 2002. In 2007 he published his first

hills for landfill projects in the sea. Today this mini-state is

photo series: Mori no Hida – Silent Respiration of Forests. That

almost flat, and must buy sand from Indonesia and Ma-

project became the start of what Shikama calls his life’s work:

laysia if it is to expand its area. Whenever a landfill project

a photographic investigation of nature. He shoots with large

begins, widespread desert-like landscapes appear on the

format cameras, and experimented with printing on handmade

edges of Singapore, replacing now-vanished beaches. On

Japanese gampi paper.

weekends residents go out to the new coast lines, search-

136 Hokkaido, Bihorotoge, 2011

ing for the beaches they once knew. AS WE WALKED ON

137 Harudakenuma #3, 2005

Takeshi Shikama (Japan, 1948) already had a long career

in the world of design behind his back when he shifted his

WATER is part of the Land Archive, a repository for found and historical images.

Renhui Zhao (Singapore, 1981) graduated cum laude

138 Robert Walker Color-Fields | 2005-2012

from the London College of Communication, and under the

Inspired by the 1960s, when, following the lead of Color

aegis of the Institute of Critical Zoologists and The Land Archive

Field painters like Morris Louis and Frank Stella, Robert

has cooperated in solo and group exhibitions in Japan, France,

Walker was producing geometric paintings, in recent years

England, South Korea, Indonesia and other countries. He

he has been photographing flowers with a comparable

received the Deutsche Bank Award for Photography and the

feeling for abstraction. But don’t be fooled, he warns,

Singapore National Arts Council Young Artist Award. In 2009

this is not an attempt to give photography the illusion of

he won the most important art prize in Singapore, the United

painting. It is an attempt to break free of photography’s

Overseas Bank Painting of the Year Award.

objective and recording function, to be able to take a fresh look at an often clichéd subject.

134 Gerco de Ruijter Baumschule | 2009-2011 Almost Nature | 2012

In BAUMSCHULE Gerco de Ruijter plays with the sharply

discussed books New York Inside Out (1984, with a foreword

defined agricultural landscapes of tree farms. Small devia-

by William S. Burroughs) and Color is Power (2000), and in

tions stand out in the rigid rhythms of the rows of trees

2003 was inducted into the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts.

– and it is precisely these deviations which assure that we

Next year COLOR-FIELDS will appear in book form.

are again aware of nature. ALMOST NATURE was done

138 Montréal Botanique - #06, 2006

in an evergreen nursery in Boskoop, South Holland. Each

139 Montréal Botanique - #29, 2010

plant there is a clone, so that each colour represents a 272

In the 1970s Robert Walker (b. Canada, 1945) took

workshops by the photographer and artist Lee Friedlander and the photographer Garry Winogrand. He published the much

140 Thomas Wrede Real Landscapes | 2004-2012

Inspired by the landscape and the light, in REAL LAND-

Her work investigates the way in which is fabricated and the

SCAPES Thomas Wrede created new worlds in model size.

influence that process has on our thinking and our lifestyle. Blau

He places toy cars and plastic trees in natural surroundings

took her Master of Arts from Wimbledon College of Art.

Justine Blau (Luxembourg, 1977) is a multidisciplinary

visual artist who uses photography, installations and sculpture.

and photographs them from just above ground level with gestures become grand and compelling: a replica of a

148 Anita Cruz-Eberhard Digital Ikebanas | 2008-ongoing

grandiose idyll or a terrible disaster.

The digital flower arrangements of Anita Cruz-Eberhard

are inspired by ikebana, the traditional Japanese art of

a large format analogue camera. As a result, the smallest

Thomas Wrede (West Germany, 1963) studied at the

Academy for Fine Arts in Münster, where he later also taught.

arranging flowers. The photographer assembles her

He won the Contemporary Art Award from the Volksbank and

bouquets from the data bases of botanical departments

Raiffeisenbank, the Karl Hofner Award, the DG-Bank Photo

at various universities – they exist thus only in digital and

Award and the Wiesbaden Photo Award. He has published the

printed form. In this sense DIGITAL IKEBANAS is an

books Strange Paradise, Manhattan / Picture World, Panorama

investigation of the relation between the natural and the

and Anywhere.

artificial, between reality and art, and between reality and

140-141 Drive-In Theatre, 2009

perception. The work underscores the illusory quality of

into the unknown

photography and demonstrates the inability of people to doubt what they see: seeing is believing.

144 Myrto Apostolidou Gong | 2011-2012

Two media come together in GONG: the series comprises

International Center of Photography and the School of Visual

a range of painted entities that are placed in photographed

Arts. Among the recognitions she has received for her work is

landscapes. The mythic figures call up associations with

the Sony World Photography Award.

Anita Cruz-Eberhard (Switzerland, 1974) has lived and

worked in New York since 1997. She studied there at the

a world after a nuclear war, or with an extreme degree Apostolidou describes the beings, painted in a naive style,

150 Alison Carey New Kingdoms | 2007-2012

as forlorn, out of their element and melancholy. They are

What will the world be like when synthetic organisms,

the visualization of the forgotten animal side of man.

created by man, adapt to the natural environment? Alison

Carey photographed dioramas with creatures made from

of evolution in which mankind has ceased to play a role.

The Greek Myrto Apostolidou (United States, 1976)

studied Media Arts at Royal Holloway and Bedford College,

flesh-like material, creating an image of the world after

London. She later pursued a course in photography in her

man. It is a science fiction landscape that is less unreal

homeland, Greece. She works primarily for theatre and film

than it seems. The progress of tissue engineering will make

productions, and organizes workshops for children on isolated

it possible in the future for us to create entities that can

Greek islands.

exist outside the controlled environment of the laboratory.

In her work Alison Carey (United States, 1966)

146 Justine Blau The Circumference of the Cumanán Cactus | 2010

investigates the distant past, and the distant future. She

In a commission for Manchester’s Piccadilly railway station

collections of various major American museums.

studied photography at the University of New Mexico and the School of Visual Arts in New York. Her work is included in the

Justine Blau created a series of nine, at first glance wild and exotic landscapes in which man plays no role. On further examination one discovers that these imaginary worlds are assembled from photos that Blau found on the internet. She took her inspiration from the drawings and paintings that were made to acquaint the home front with the discoveries of explorers, from Columbus to Captain Cook with their new worlds, images which were at one and the same time scientific evidence, eye-witnesses’ accounts, and the source of myths.

273

152 Margherita Cesaretti Erbario | 2008

158 Michael Flomen Hope | 2000-2011

An herbarium, a collection of different species of plants and

Our self-chosen separation from nature is one of the central

flowers, is a scientific manner of observing, categorizing

problems for mankind, Michael Flomen argues. We need

and cataloguing nature. In ERBARIO Margherita Cesaretti

contact with nature, and lose an essential part of ourselves

investigates the fragile beauty of flowers. The series is

when we avoid that contact. Flomen photographs a nature

the outcome of various techniques, ranging from glass

that we do not perceive directly, although we know it exists.

negatives to digital photography. For Cesaretti, these

He work outdoors, where insects and the elements, but

plants, once again awakened to life, are a metaphor for the

also electromagnetic fields and other natural phenomena

way that man seeks ways to survive in all circumstances.

affect his photosensitive material directly. His images, he

explains, are intended to appeal to memories that are

Margherita Cesaretti (Italy, 1982) was trained as a painter

at the Belle Arti in Florence, and in 2010 received a diploma from

deeply anchored in our genes.

the Fondazione Studio Marangoni. In 2010 she won the Special

Italia Prize, and a year later the Fofu Photo Challenge prize.

a street photographer in the tradition of Henri Cartier-Bresson.

From 1974 to 1990 Michael Flomen (Canada, 1952) was

Since then he has focused on the landscape, in particular on

154 Christopher Colville Nothing Is the Rule | 2011-2012

snow. Since 1999 he has been experimenting with exposing

Creation and destruction become one in the work of

158-159 Contact, 2001

Christopher Colville. The artist explodes small amounts of

158 (left) Where Are You, 2004

photosensitive materials directly to the elements.

gunpowder on silver gelatine photo paper. Although the

evoke associations with processes that take place in deep

160 Sharon Harper One Month, Weather Permitting | 2009 Sun/Moon | 2010-ongoing

space, where creation and destruction are equally closely

ONE MONTH consists of photographs of the night sky over

connected with each other.

the Canadian city of Banff. Thanks to the long exposure

time we see not only the tracks of the stars – as streaks of

explosions are controlled by placing objects on the photo paper, the result is always a brilliant accident. The images

Christopher Colville (United States, 1974) studied

successively at Washington University in St. Louis and

light – but also the interference caused by clouds crossing

the University of New Mexico. His work is included in

the sky and air pollution. The series consists of random

the permanent collections of the International Center of

compositions, which become a metaphor for greater

Photography in New York and the Museum of Photographic

natural forces that refuse to submit to our will for order. In

Arts in San Diego, among other institutions. Presently Colville is

these images Harper makes things palpable which remain

a guest lecturer at Arizona State University.

elusive to the naked eye. In SUN/MOON she mines the

154

impact cameras and optics have on our understanding: we

(left) Gunpowder Moon, 2010

154-155 Work of Fire Verticle #2, 2011

can not look at the sun directly, or know the details of the moon's surface, without a mediating instrument.

156 Henrik Isaksson Garnell Unplugged 2.0 | 2009-2010

For UN-PLUGGED 2.0 Henrik Isaksson Garnell construct-

work, in which technology and perception take centre stage,

ed creatures from natural and man-made elements. He

is included in the permanent collections of the MOMA in New

combined bones, teeth, plants and other organic materials

York, Whitney Museum of American Art, Museum of Fine Arts in

with iron wire, lamps, and other human ephemera. Once

Houston, and other prestigious institutions. Presently she is an

they were completed the artist photographed them in

instructor at Harvard University.

large format, against a black background. The surrealistic

160 One Month, Weather Permitting, 2009

result appears to have arisen in the mind of someone from

Night Sky over Banff, Alberta, Canada

another planet.

September 12 – October 10, 2007

12 September 13 September

Henrik Isaksson Garnell (Sweden, 1987) took the

Kulturama Higher Photography Education course in Stockholm.

161 Sun/Moon (Trying to See through a Telescope), 2011

In his still short career the unconventional and experimental

Solstice No. 3.

photographer has had solo exhibitions in Berlin, Istanbul and

2011 Jun 21 12:35:34 PM

Stockholm, the city where he lives and works. He describes himself as ‘part artist, part mad scientist’. 274

Sharon Harper (United States) received her Master

of Fine Arts from the School of Visual Arts in New York. Her

162 Paul den Hollander The Luminous Garden | 2010-2011

samples. She makes collages with the images she acquires, which are an ode to the power of nature and

For many people, only part of the physical reality of the

pose poetic questions about the essence of life and time.

world of plants is directly visible. In addition to the forms

that we can see with the unaided eye, plants are sur-

photography at Yale University. She has received grants

rounded by an invisible electromagnetic field. Paul den

from the Fulbright Foundation, the Japan Foundation and

Hollander brings the form and field together, creating a

the American Department of the Interior. At present she is

totally new experience of reality as he does. But more: with

Professor of Photography at the University of North Texas. As a

THE LUMINOUS GARDEN he builds a bridge between art

Fellow of the Guggenheim Foundation she is receiving support

and science.

toward the completion of the project ARCHIVING EDEN.

Dornith Doherty (United States, 1957) studied

Paul den Hollander (Netherlands, 1950) studied at the

in 1973 honoured him with the City of Breda Prize. Since

168 Gábor Kerekes Over Roswell | 2002-2008

then Den Hollander has made a name for himself with work in

There are claims that in 1947 a space craft with three dead

which nature is central. He has published several monographs,

extraterrestrials on board crashed near the American town

including Moments in Time (1982), Les Pyramides du Nord

of Roswell, New Mexico – a claim shrouded in mystery and

(1992) and Voyage Botanique (1997), which earned the Foto

source of many conspiracy theories. When Gábor Kerekes

Kees Scherer Prize for the best Dutch photo book.

discovered the computer programme USA Photo Maps, from

St. Joost Academy for Art and Design in Breda, a city which

which it is possible to download photographic quality satellite

164 Kahn & Selesnick The Apollo Prophecies | 2005

images, he wanted to see Roswell as it looks from space.

The seed for THE APOLLO PROPHECIES was planted

by some hundreds of metres... and saw geometric forms

during a period at Toni Morrison’s Atelier Program at

that are intended to get information across to lay persons.

Princeton University. It resulted, years later, in a uninter-

He printed them out and photographed the prints in large

rupted panoramic black and white photo half a metre high

format, so that the digital image again became analogue.

and thirty metres long. On it we see astronauts from the

1960s, who once on the moon discover an expedition

1945) makes work in which the production process and

from the early 20th century which was supposed to have

experimentation are central. He combines analogue projection,

been lost. Kahn and Selesnick made use of miniatures and

photography and heavy digital manipulation of the results to

real actors, who come together in a story with different

create an abstract reality.

Due to a mistake in the coordinates he missed his target

The Hungarian Gábor Kerekes (West Germany,

episodes, composed with a narrative technique reminiscent of religious frescos.

Nicholas Kahn (United States, 1964) and Richard

170 Peeter Laurits Atlas of Heavens | 1999-2012

Selesnick (Great Britain, 1964), both British citizens, have been

The ATLAS OF HEAVENS series is an exercise in pseudo-

working together since they met each other in the early 1980s

cartography. Anyone looking at nature will regularly recognize

while studying at the Art School of Washington University, in

structures that call up associations with maps and alien

St. Louis. They combine photography and installations, and

worlds. Peeter Laurits found them in the toadstools with

specialize in fictional stories which are situated in a distant past

which he was surrounded when he moved to a small hut in

or distant future. Their work is included in a number of museum

the woods of southern Estonia. He photographed them so

collections. Kahn and Selesnick have published three books:

that they create the illusion of colourful and bizarre planets. In

Scotlandfuturebog, City of Salt and The Apollo Prophecies.

doing so he has not only produced portraits of magic mushrooms, but also accounts of mental trips that are sometimes

166 Dornith Doherty Archiving Eden | 2008-ongoing

hallucinatory and sometimes meditative in nature.

Dornith Doherty has been working together with prominent

1962) studied at the universities of Tartu, Tallinn and Leningrad,

botanists from the seed banks of the American Department

and at the New York International Center of Photography.

of Agriculture and the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew,

Otherwise self-educated, he has delved deeply into history,

England, since 2008. In a time of climate change and

philosophy, literature and art, influences that are perceptible in

declining biodiversity, these banks play an important

his work. Since 1990 his work has been exhibited in England,

role in guaranteeing genetic diversity. Doherty uses the

Island, the United States, Germany, The Netherlands, and other

institutions’ x-ray equipment to record seed and tissue

countries.

Born and raised in Estonia, Peeter Laurits (Soviet Union,

275

172 Sergey Lutsenko The Dark Side of the Moon | 2009

The moon influences life on earth in many ways: through

visual effects for the films Moulin Rouge, Harry Potter and the

the tides, but also through the way in which this heavenly

Prisoner of Azkaban and 300. It was a hectic life, that took her

body – which always turns its same face to us – stimulates

all over the world. In 2008 she decided to devote herself entirely

our fantasies. Sergey Lutsenko evokes his own ideal image

to her own work: poetic landscapes in which photography and

After her studies at the College of Fine Arts in Sydney,

Catherine Nelson (Australia, 1970) assisted in providing the

of a lunar colony. It is not based on a metropolis, but on

digital manipulation come together seamlessly.

a world that feels familiar, like a small town: traffic signs,

176 The King’s Garden, 2011

sports fields, a kitchen garden. There are no people,just

objects. In that sense, Lutsenko says, it is also a model for

177 Spring Blossoms I (from the series NUIT AMERICAINE)

(from the series OTHER WORLDS)

lunar land art. trained as a painter at the Krasnodar Art School, and later took

178 Edi Szekely White Noise | 2012

a course in Conceptual Photography. In 2011 he completed the

Sfumato, Italian for ‘smoky’, is a technique in painting in

course in Graphic Design at the KGUKI Art Academy, also in

which the contours of objects are blurred. With the use of

Krasnodar.

a 3D programme and mathematical noise algorithms Edi

The Russian Sergey Lutsenko (Soviet Union, 1984) was

Szekely created idyllic, apparently virgin landscapes. But by

174 Judy Natal Future Perfect | 2007-2012

applying a sfumato technique to parts of the image, the im-

The future perfect tense is used to describe events that

in which we usually think about landscape: as something

have not yet occurred, but may confidently be expected

that is largely shaped by interventions on the part of man.

to happen. In FUTURE PERFECT we see three locations

where future ways of life and the choices that people will

studied photography at the Dortmund University of Applied

have to make are being anticipated. One is a piece of

Sciences. His work is a symbiosis between technology and

desert near Las Vegas where experiments with sustainable

nature, two ostensibly contrasting elements.

pression of mystery is evoked. It is reminiscent of the way

The German photographer Edi Szekely (Romania, 1986)

living are taking place, the second the artificial ecosystem landscapes in Island. From the accumulated images Natal

180 Stephanie Valentin earthbound | 2009

composed several chapters. Starting in the year 2040, she

With earthbound – in small letters – Stephanie Valentin

goes back to 2010. Noorderlicht shows the 2040 chapter.

continues her photographic investigation of the hidden

layers of the natural world. Now that climate change has

Biosphere 2 at Oracle, Arizona and the third the geothermal

In her work Judy Natal (United States, 1953) focuses on

the landscape and the ways in which interventions are made

shown just how interconnected the biological, atmospheric

in it. She has published the books EarthWords (2004) and

and geological systems of the world are with one another,

Neon Boneyard Las Vegas A-Z (2006), and has been artist

she is chiefly interested in the question of where our

in residence at Biosphere 2. Presently Natal is professor of

knowledge of these systems, and with that our certain-

photography at Columbia College, Chicago.

ties, leave off. She made her images in the Mallee region of South Australia, where she grew up. They touch on the

176

Catherine Nelson Danube | 2012 Other Worlds | 2011-2012 Nuit Americaine | 2011

biosphere.

Stephanie Valentin (Australia, 1962) makes the changing

relations between nature, culture and technology central in

When Catherine Nelson began photographing, the feeling

her work, which is sometimes created in collaboration with

crept over her that the medium fell short of being able to

scientists. She received her Masters degree in Photomedia

get across her inner experience of the world around her.

from the College of Fine Arts of the University of New South

Thanks to her training as a painter and years of experience

Wales, in Sydney. Her work has often been shown, and has

in the film industry, where she had worked with the most

been published in Wired and Nature.

advanced digital effects, she was able to find new ways.

180 (left) Gathering field 2

From thousands of photos of a specific place she as-

180-181 Terrarium

sembles floating, transcendent and otherworldly appearing landscapes. 276

need to decipher our relation with the ecosystem and the

182 Marcel Wesdorp I Wish I Couldn’t Lie | 2005 Out of nothing | 2012

between words, mental images and photography. In the

With the aid of digital techniques, topography, cartography

and 3D software Marcel Wesdorp makes animated films

in Photographic Studies cum laude at the University of

and prints of digitally designed landscapes. They are the

Westminster in London. He won the jury prize of the Nikon

outcome of a lengthy process of calculation, and convey

Discovery Awards, and this year he competed for a Sony

the sense of landscape by means of undulating hills. Be-

World Photography Award. Presently he is artist in residence at

cause of the absence of people, animals or plants, but also

Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts in Taipei, Taiwan.

process he lays bare our ideas about what is natural and what is man-made. Ignasi Cunill (Spain, 1976) took a Master of Arts

because the green tints are converted into grey tones, we scapes that accentuate the insignificance of man.

190 Erwan Fichou Miradors | 2010

Photography is not so much a matter of recording

can imagine ourselves on the tundra or steppes – landMarcel Wesdorp (Netherlands, 1965) studied at the

Grafisch Lyceum and the Willem de Kooning Academy, both

reality, but rather creates a narrative framework in which

in Rotterdam, and took the post-graduate programme for

interaction and projection play a large role. We live in a

photography at the St. Joost Academy for Art and Design in

world of images, Fichou says, but these images precede

Breda. A central theme in Wesdorps’s work is his fascination

a supposed reality that we construct in our mind. For his

with the way in which people experience time.

series MIRADORS Fichou had trees along the streets of

182 2011

Mexico City trimmed by nurserymen, after which he asked

183 2012

people to climb into the trees to pose for the photos.

the urban jungle

Reality, or not?

Erwan Fichou (France, 1975) has shown his work at

186 Karin Borghouts Through the Looking Glass | 2001-2005

Rencontres Internationales de Photographie in Arles, the Centre

Strip away the backgrounds in zoos and amusement

has published work in Le Monde, Libération, Vice, and other

parks of people and animals, and what is left are artificial

periodicals. Fichou lives and works in Paris.

Atlantique de la Photographie in Brest, and other venues. He

reconstructions of wild nature. Just as a photograph memory of real nature, which we normally know only from

192 Eric Jan van de Geer Private Landscape II | 2009

photographs and films. By recording these backdrops

The photographer Eric Jan van de Geer is interested in

Karin Borghouts creates a memory of a memory. In doing

commonplace things that usually escape our notice. In

so, she poses questions about the nature of photography

PRIVATE LANDSCAPE II he recorded front gardens during

and our ideal images of nature.

the night hours. The photos are shot on landscape format

Polaroid film. This was not from nostalgic considerations,

is a memory of a moment, this fake nature is only a

Karin Borghouts (Belgium, 1959) was trained as a

painter and sculptor. She has worked as a graphic designer,

but for the restrictions that the material brings with it, which

and photographed, since 1999. In her work she focuses

force the artist to make hard choices.

on specific places: architectural spaces, zoos, parks and

amusement parks, museums and interiors. Her work is on

the Constantijn Huygens Hogeschool voor de Kunsten and

the boundary between the visual arts and photography, and

took the second phase curriculum in painting at the Frank

frequently refers to painting.

Mohr Institute in Groningen. In 2002 he was honoured at the

Eric Jan van de Geer (Netherlands, 1965) studied at

European Biënnale for the Graphic Arts in Brugge. Since 2008

188 Ignasi Cunill Urban Landscapes | 2010

he has been an instructor at the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam.

The way in which we see the landscape is to a great extent determined by the words that we use to describe it and the aesthetic values that we project on it. Ignasi Cunill sees the landscape not only as a physical fact, but also as a mirror of our soul. In photos of landscape elements in an urban environment, where our ideas about nature and culture encounter each other, he plays with the delicate balance

277

194 Kate Greene Anomalous Phenomena | 2011

Stefanie Zoche (West Germany, 1965) studied at the École des

Inspired by 19th century occult photography, the

worked together since 1998. They won a German prize for

Beaux Arts at Perpignan and Middlesex University. They have

symbolism of 17th century Dutch still-lifes, and the

photo books, and were nominated for the Prix Pictet.

obsessive character of botanical catalogues, Kate Greene

198-199 Palmeninsel II (palm island II)

photographs carefully constructed natural tableaux and the and time. She tries to build a bridge between the scientific

200 Knibbeler/Wetzer Typology | 2009-ongoing

perception of the physical world and the way in which

Although we continue to cherish a desire for wild nature,

people experience that world.

man has become used to the complete adaptation of the

natural environment to his wishes. Bonsai trees are on the

way that landscapes change under the influence of light

Kate Greene (United Sates, 1978) took her Masters in

photography in the art programme at America’s Yale University.

one hand an extreme form of control that is exercised over

Her work was seen at the New York Photo Festival and in a

nature, but behind the growing of bonsai lies a yearning for

number of galleries. She was Visiting Lecturer in Photography

knowledge of and contact with nature. In that sense they

at Humboldt State University in California.

are a metaphor for our search for a different relation with

194 Philodendron bipinnatifidum (Philodendron)

the natural environment.

195 Ficus benjamina (Ficus)

Sjoerd Knibbeler (Netherlands, 1981) and Rob

Wetzer (Netherlands, 1981) both studied photography at

196 Jonathan Groeneweg The Nature of Urbanity | 2012

the Hogeschool voor de Kunsten in Utrecht and the Royal

The garden is a metaphor for the ways in which people

awards at the Naarden Photo Festival; Wetzer in 2010 and

have freed themselves from the wilderness and began

Knibbeler in 2011.

Academy for the Fine Arts in The Hague. Both have received

shaping the world around them according to their own and controlled at a macro level, but no less chaotic at the

202 Christophe Maout Printemps | 2004-2010

level of the foliage – Jonathan Groeneweg touches on

Often the planting in an urban environment – the greenery

long-running discussions about the landscape and urban

in planters in front of a building, the trees along a road –

development. Our changing perception of nature has direct

has little more than a symbolic or decorative function. But

influence on the way in which we see ourselves, and the

in his series PRINTEMPS Christophe Maout has the plants

ways in which we deal with nature.

take centre stage. By using a very short depth of field, the

surroundings fall away and the cherry blossoms, irises

insights. With his aerial photos of gardens – mathematical

Jonathan Groeneweg (Canada, 1984) took his Bachelor

of Fine Arts cum laude in 2006 at the University of Calgary, and

and other plants become the stars. All the images were

his Masters in Documentary Media at Ryerson University in

made by Maout in Paris and its vicinity, without any digital

2012. As a photographer and as curator he was responsible for

manipulation.

a trio of exhibitions in Toronto in 2012. His dialectically coloured

work transforms the traditional relation between image, format

published in the French and international press, particularly with

and the photographic frame.

portraits and still-lifes. His work has appeared in shows at the

Christophe Maout (France, 1967) has frequently been

Nederlands Fotomuseum in Rotterdam and at Les Rencontres

198 Sabine Haubitz & Stefanie Zoche Tropical Island | 2004

Internationales de la Photographie in Arles, France. Since

In 2004 the Halle CargoLifter near Brandenburg was

newspaper Libération.

2009 he has been writing a photo blog for the website of the

converted into an artificial tropical paradise with a rain Haubitz and Stefanie Zoche recorded the transformation,

204 Jamie Maxtone-Graham The Desiring Garden | 2011

so that one could see what elements are necessary to

Within the highly urbanized environment of Hanoi, Jamie

suggest a tropical setting. It's an illusion that demands a

Maxtone-Graham captures the reactions of people who

vast expenditure of energy.

encounter a staged garden full of flowers, fruit, vegetables

and animals that were bought in the markets of Vietnam’s

forest, swimming pools and a heated beach. Sabine

278

Sabine Haubitz (West Germany, 1959) won the Kodak

Prize for Young Photographers in 1988. and between 1984

capital. The result is a Rousseauesque game with our ideas

and 1992 studied at the Art Academies in Berlin and Munich.

of the exotic, in which the logic of the location, and the

photographic document itself, are undermined.

new career as a photographer and visual artist. Her work has

been shown in the National Portrait Gallery and York Art Gallery,

Jamie Maxtone-Graham (United States, 1957) has been

working as a cameraman for over 20 years, and since 1990

among other places. She is presently working on a doctorate in

has been recording the changing Vietnamese society in both

photography at the University of Plymouth.

documentaries and feature films. He was a Fulbright Research current Vietnamese youth culture. Presently Maxtone-Graham

210 Irina Rozovsky In Plain Air | 2011-ongoing

lives with his wife, the filmmaker Nguyen Trinh Thi, and their

When it was designed in 1867 Prospect Park, in the heart

daughter in Hanoi.

of Brooklyn, New York, was the first American public park,

Fellow in 2007, and received financing for a photo project on

accessible for all social classes. In her long-running project

206 Ardine Nelson Green Spaces | 2004-2009

IN PLAIN AIR Irina Rozovsky photographs the park so that

The series GREEN SPACES focuses on allotment gardens,

the function of the park as an oasis of peace in hectic

as these have developed in Germany, based on the

urban life, a place where people, albeit for only a short

theories of the German physician Moritz Schreber (1808-

time, can come in contact with nature and can experience

1861). Out of his concern for the health of urban dwellers,

private, transcendent moments.

Schreber advised that plots of land be reserved where city

folk could practise gardening. According to Schreber that

graduated cum laude in French and Spanish literature at Tufts

would not only provide healthy physical exercise, but also

University, Massachusetts, and took her Master of Fine Arts

supplement the food supply for their families. Nelson pho-

in photography at Massachusetts College of Arts. She has

tographed the gardens as individual private paradises.

frequently taught at American universities and the International

Center of Photography in New York, and published several

Ardine Nelson (United States, 1948) uses both traditional

and experimental photographic techniques in her work; years

the surrounding city is no longer visible. She underscores

Irina Rozovski (Soviet Union, 1981), now American,

photo books, including the monograph One to Nothing (2011).

ago she was one of the first to experiment with the Polaroid States and other countries, and she has received many

212 Traer Scott Natural History | 2009-2011

working grants. She is professor emeritus in the photography

During the summers when she was nine and ten, Traer

programme of the Department of Art at Ohio State University.

Scott spent her time in the local natural history museum.

206

Her mother worked there as a volunteer, and wanted to

process. Her work has often been exhibited in the United

(above) An dem Zschierbach II, Dresden 2004

206-207 (above) An Der Elche ,Dresden, 2007

save on the cost of child minders. Since that time Scott

207

(above) Ostra höhe, Dresden 2004

has cherished an enormous affection for everything that is

206

(below) Trachau, Dresden 2008

old and mysterious. In her series NATURAL HISTORY she

206-207 (below) Dresden 2004

brings the dead and the living – the collection and the often

207

young visitors – together.

(below) Trachau, Dresden 2008

Traer Scott (United States, 1973) has done the photo

208 Yan Preston Forest | 2011-ongoing

books Shelter Dogs (2006), Street Dogs (2007) and Wild

What is Utopia, and what does it cost to build it? FOREST

in magazines such as National Geographic, LIFE and Vogue,

shows how they are trying to construct a utopia from

and won the Helen Woodward Humane Award for her work

scratch in the Chinese city of Chongqing. The goal is a

on behalf of animal welfare. She teaches photography at the

model city incorporating five ‘ideals’. A woods is one of

Rhode Island School of Design.

Horses: Endangered Beauty (2008). She publishes frequently

them. But rather than planting trees and patiently waiting for them to grow, full-grown trees are being uprooted for a sort of prefab forest. The promise of a beautiful future is thus being realized through methods that strain the resources of both culture and nature.

Yan Preston (China, 1976), now British, was born in

Henan, China, lived for a long time in the county of Yorkshire, England, and worked for three years as an anaesthesiologist in Shanghai. When she returned to England in 2005 she began a

279

214 Andy Sewell The Heath | 2006-2010

Hampstead Heath was once part of London’s rural sur-

are stored like JPEGs. They are broken up and saved in

roundings. Today it is a green oasis in the midst of a busy

pieces, which are only put back together when they are

urban landscape. Andy Sewell regularly wanders in The

called up. The missing data is filled in by the brain. Kurt

Heath in search of nature, fully realizing that the area was

Tong took his pictures in a botanical garden, in a large

shaped, and is maintained by the hand of man. His series

format and under ever-changing lighting conditions. He ap-

THE HEATH is an investigation of what, precisely, nature is,

plied different techniques to destroy the information in the

but also of what the American biologist E.O. Wilson called

image, after which he scanned the images with scanners at

‘biophilia’ – the attraction you feel to the natural, without

different settings. Ultimately he assembled an image again

knowing exactly why.

from the results, in the same way that the memory makes a

complete image again from fragments.

The work of Andy Sewell (Great Britain, 1978) has been

Memories, Dreams; Interrupted | 2009-2010

Scientists have sometimes suggested that memories

included in the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum and

the National Media Museum, among others, and was honoured

his Masters in photojournalism at the London College of

Kurt Tong (Hong Kong, 1977), a British citizen, took

with the Magenta Award. The Heath, his first photo book, was

Communication. He has received a number of honours,

included in various lists of important books of the year.

including from the Magenta Foundation and Hey Hot Shot. In 2011 he published the monograph In Case it Rains in Heaven.

216 Anastasia Taylor-Lind Gaza Zoos | 2009 It is ironic that a people who are confined themselves

220 Graeme Williams Objects of Reminiscence | 2009-2012

should confine and exhibit animals. The residents of Gaza

In name of progress short work is being made of the

are conscious of this irony. A zoo is a small prison, they

majestic African landscape and its wealth of animals. Like

say, and Gaza is a big zoo. Still, they do not identify with

some sort of half-baked monuments to the colour and

the animals, which have to do without names, and are

grandeur of Africa’s nature, everywhere in African cities one

often treated heartlessly. There are several zoos in Gaza,

finds kitschy replicas of wild trees and animals. Often they

but they are all money-losing propositions. The only one

are made in China. They are bitter compositions that are

who makes money on the zoos is the animal trader and

reminders of the lost relation between man and nature. The

smuggler Abu Nadal-Khalid, who for a substantial sum can

images were made in twelve different African countries.

get you any animal you want.

by Reuters in 1989 to record South Africa’s transition from

The Swedish/British Anastasia Taylor-Lind (Great

Britain, 1981) is a photojournalist connected with the VII Photo

apartheid to the ANC government. Since 1991 he has worked

Agency, with a special interest in the Middle East. Her work

for Afrapix. Several years later he was co-founder of the

has been shown in the Saatchi Gallery and the National Portrait

photo agency South Photographs. Among institutions which

Gallery in London. In 2010 she received the FNAC Grant for

have included his work in their permanent collections are

Photojournalism. Among her other achievements has been a

the Smithsonian, the South African National Gallery and the

Canon Young Photographers Award.

Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg.

216 Bird cages in animal-trader Abu Nadal’s office at his

220 (above) East London Airport departures hall.

home in Rafah.

South Africa, 2006.

217 Mahmod Berghote stands with one of Marah Zoo’s world

220 (below) The Capital City Motel in Lilongwe.

famous painted donkeys. The zoo’s two white donkeys caused

an international media frenzy when Mahmod and his brother first

221 (above) The guest lounge at The Lodge in Lilongwe.

spent three days painting stripes onto them using black hair dye.

Unable to find an animal trader to bring a real zebra through the

221 (below) A flower bed at the Hotel Zambeze in Tete.

tunnels from Egypt, the Bargote family decided to make a fake

pair using white donkeys. The story was reported all over the world as a feel good news piece and often used as an example of the Palestinian peoples resourcefulness during the siege of Gaza.

218 Kurt Tong 280

Graeme Williams (South Africa, 1961) was recruited

Malawi, 2009. Malawi, 2009. Mozambique, 2010.

untamed 224 Sonja Braas The Quiet of Dissolution | 2005-2010

228 Sumit Dayal Vanishing Islands | 2008 The Sundarbans, the largest mangrove swamps in the world

The phenomenon of a natural disaster can not be viewed

and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, are under threat from

apart from the presence of people. The destructive forces

rising sea levels. Sumit Dayal photographed the inhabitants

inherent in nature are essential for the development and

of this area, who are being forced to move inland because

evolution of the landscape, while man has a vital interest in

their islands are being swallowed by the water. Four islands

controlling nature and bending it to his will. The images of

have disappeared into the sea in the last quarter century,

THE QUIET OF DISSOLUTION, staged by Braas in her stu-

leaving 6000 families homeless. Other islands, including Sa-

dio, deal with this contradiction, placing culture and order

gar, the largest island, are rapidly seeing their size decrease.

over against nature and chaos.

in Nepal, and graduated from the University of Delhi. In 2006

Sonja Braas (West Germany, 1968) studied visual

Sumit Dayal (India, 1981) was born in Kashmir, grew up

communication and other subjects at the Fachhochschule

he successfully completed the course in Documentary & Photo

Dortmund, and (with the aid of a Fulbright grant) at the School of

Journalism at the International Center of Photography in New

Visual Arts in New York. She lived by turns in Germany, Australia

York. In his work he focuses on the changing landscape and

and the United States, and has been the recipient of awards

disappearing cultures of South East Asia. In 2010 the American

including the Rheinhard Wolf Prize, the FOCUS Prize and the

photo magazine PDN included his name on their list of 30 Emerg-

Kodak Prize for Young Artists.

ing Photographers to Watch.

224-225 Blizzard 225 (right) Storm

226 Alejandro Chaskielberg Turkana | 2011

230 James Whitlow Delano Living with volcanos: Giving Life and Taking It | 2010 Volcanos have two faces. Eruptions bring death and

In the second half of 2011 the Horn of Africa was faced

destruction, as seen in 2010 when Mount Merapi in

with the most serious food crisis yet this century: twelve

Indonesia claimed 324 lives during the worst eruption in a

million people did not have enough food, potable water,

century. But at the same time volcanic soil provides a wealth

and sanitary provisions. Alejandro Chaskielberg went to the

of minerals that are necessary for agriculture. It is from that

province of Turkana in Kenya, a sparsely populated region

fact that volcanos encouraged the rise of kingdoms, such

where poor cattle farmers seek to live off land that that is

as the Majapahit empire on Java. Living around volcanos is

absolutely unsuited for agriculture. He recorded the strength

a constant process of give and take.

and persistence of a people who are constantly struggling

with recalcitrant nature. Chaskielberg made his series in

in Asia for 18 years now. With Tokyo as his base, he works

cooperation with OxfamNovib.

on long-term projects on human rights, the environment

and cultural developments. His work has earned him prizes,

Alejandro Chaskielberg (Argentina, 1977) began his

James Whitlow Delano (United States, 1960) has lived

career as a photojournalist for various local newspapers and

including the PX3 Gold Award and the Award of Excellence from

magazines. After studying industrial design and photography, in

Communication Arts magazine. Delano has published several

2000 he became director of photography at the National Film

books, including Empire, Impressions from China and his recent

Institute in Buenos Aires. These duties have in no way reduced

iPad book Black Tsunami. He is presently involved with the

Chaskielbergâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s output as a photographer and documentarist.

Noorderlicht project The Sweet and Sour Story of Sugar.

He is presently involved with the Noorderlicht project The Sweet

230-231 A rice farmer watches the biggest eruption of the

and Sour Story of Sugar. His first monograph, La Creciente,

Merapi volcano in over a century. The death toll has

appeared recently. 226-227 The Dreaming Family. Elisabeth Ekatapan and her family

risen to 324 people. Muntilan, Java, Indonesia. 231

(above) Women doing the laundry in a river that has

sleep under the stars in Northern Turkana. Because of

been silted up with volcanic ash. At the same place the

the continuous droughts that affect the region her herd

ash has weighed down lush tropical foliage almost like a heavy spring snowfall. Muntilan, Java, Indonesia.

of 55 goats has died, cutting off her main source of income.

231

(below) A woman enters her home which withstood the weight of the volcanic ash. The breadfruit tree in front of the house has collapsed and been severely damaged by the accumulated ash. Along the highway from Yogyakarta to Magelang, Java, Indonesia.

281

282

232 Nigel Dickinson French Forests after the Great Storms | 2000-2005

236 Michel Huneault Water Memories | 2011

In December, 1999, two massive storms raced across

in Quebec are at risk of flooding. In 2011 it was the turn of

France, that destroyed 8 percent of its woodlands. Woods

Venise-en-Québec, which lies on the banks of Lake Cham-

which were planted and managed by man were relatively

plain. More than three thousand homes and businesses

harder hit. A year later Nigel Dickinson photographed the

were damaged, and over a thousand residents had to be

damage. Five years later he once again photographed the

evacuated. The diptychs of WATER MEMORIES show the

woods, to record the differences in the recovery of the

extent of the flooding, and the clean-up which followed.

woodlands that were being permitted to restore themselves

The core of the problem is the ambivalent relationship

naturally and those where human interventions were being

between man and water, Huneault says. Water attracts

made to encourage their recovery.

us, but at the same time remains an unpredictable force of

nature.

In his work Nigel Dickinson (Great Britain, 1959) focuses

Each spring, as the snow melts, many villages and cities

on the human environment, marginalized communities, identity,

and culture. He has worked on series on apartheid in South

while he was a development worker and on peace missions.

Africa, the miners’ strikes of the 1980s, deforestation and the

He studied with the Magnum photographer Gilles Peress, and

Roma. He won a World Press Photo Award, the W. Eugene

since 2006 has devoted himself entirely to photography. In his

Smith Award and the UK Press Photographers award for 2008.

own country he won several LUX/CAPIC prizes, and in 2010

He received the Critical Mass 2011 Solo Exhibition Award for

received the British FOTO8 Award. His work is rooted in both

his series Smokey Mountain.

the documentary and humanist traditions in photography.

234 Wyatt Gallery Tent Life: Haiti | 2010

238 Massimo Mastrorillo Temporary? Landscape | 2009-2012

Two months after the disastrous earthquake that struck

On the 6th of April 2009 the historical centre of the Italian

Haiti on 12 January. 2010, Wyatt Gallery went to Port-

town of L'Aquila was severely damaged by an earthquake.

au-Prince with five fellow artists to do volunteer work and

In his work, which deals with L’Aquila and the consequenc-

record the consequences of the disaster. What impressed

es of the earthquake, Massimo Mastrorillo shows us how

him was the resilience of the people. Seven months later

the landscape constantly changes in an emergency situ-

he returned to photograph life in the gigantic tent camps

ation, without any serious long-term planning lying behind

– cities in themselves. He did portraits of the people there

its evolution. Frozen in images these temporary landscapes

who, thanks to their inner strength, were able to keep go-

look everlasting.

ing in the midst of a humanitarian crisis.

European Institute for Design in Rome. He works chiefly on

Wyatt Gallery (United States, 1975) was included in

Michel Huneault (Canada, 1976) began to photograph

Massimo Mastrorillo (Italy, 1961) graduated from the

the list of the thirty best photographers under the age of thirty

long-running documentary projects on the consequences

published by the American professional photo magazine

of wars and natural disasters. He has worked together with

Photo District News. He studied at NYU’s Tisch School of the

Médecins Sans Frontièrs and has received, among other

Arts, and received a Daniel Rosenberg Grant and a Fulbright

distinctions, a World Press Photo award, the Picture of the Year,

Fellowship to photograph religious sites in the Caribbean

a Lucie Award and a Sony World Photography Award. Recently,

region. His work is included in the permanent collection of the

together with the photographer Donald Weber and writer Larry

Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Texas.

Frolick, he organized the collective MASTODON.

240 Katsumi Omori Everything Happens for the First Time | 2011

246 S. Gayle Stevens Pass | 2009-2011

One of the central events each spring in Japan is hanami,

In English, ‘to pass’ can mean ‘to go by’, or ‘to die’ or ‘to

the brief period when the cherry trees blossom. Katsumi

go from one state to another’. Pass Christian was also the

Omori has captured that event for the last decade. It was

name of an artists’ colony in Mississippi that was destroyed

obvious that in the spring of 2011, after the earthquake,

by the furious waters during Hurricane Katrina. Only 500 of

tsunami and nuclear incident, he would go from Tokyo in

the 8000 houses survived the disaster, and many residents

the direction of the disaster-struck Fukushima in search of

never returned. In PASS S. Gayle Stevens records the ruins

the blossoms. His images contain suggestions of things

of the artists’ village in small, intimate images, shot with a

that people can not see, but which ares nonetheless pres-

pinhole camera.

ent: anxiety, radiation and hope for the future.

Master of Fine Arts from the Art Institute of Chicago. Critical

Katsumi Omori (Japan, 1963) has published many photo

S. Gayle Stevens (United States, 1955) received her

books, including Salsa Gum Tape (1998), Encounter (2005),

Mass proclaimed her one of the 50 best photographers of

Incarnation (2010) and Bonjour (2010). In 1994 jury members

2010, and she is a member of the photo collective When Pigs

Robert Frank and Kotaro Iizawa honoured him with the

Fly. She works chiefly with the collodion wet plate process,

Excellence Award in the New Cosmos of Photography.

today an individualistic technique involving coating and exposing wet glass negatives that goes back to the earliest

242 Miti Ruangkritya Imagining Flood | 2011

years of photography.

Last year the Thai capital Bangkok was struck by severe

247 Pool, Cedar Avenu, 2009

246 Foundations, Cedar Avenue and Fir, 2009

floods. The series IMAGINING FLOOD is an attempt to capture the threat of the water and the surreal side of the disaster in photos which come across as dreamy and unworldly. For his purposes Miti Ruangkritya chose to photograph at night or in the early morning, when the water exuded a certain serenity which in fact intensified rather than reduced the fear, and the often anxious expectation.

Miti Ruangkritya (Thailand, 1981) studied

photojournalism at the University of Westminster in England, after which he became an assistant to the Magnum photographer Antoine d’Agata. In 2011 and 2012 he was honoured with the Magenta Flash Forward – Emerging Photographers award, and in 2012 also received the Prix de la Photographie. He lives and works in Bangkok.

244 Protick Sarker Of River and Lost Lands | 2011-2012 The river gives and takes. When the monsoon comes, it swells and swallows whole villages. Anything and everything is carried away with it – from gigantic, holy trees to ordinary garbage. Protick Sarker investigates life along the river, life that is totally dependent on the water, but is equally threatened by it.

Protick Sarker (Bangladesh, 1986) studied photography

at Pathshala, the South Asian Media Academy. After participating in various workshops with famous photographers like Munem Wasif, Laurence Leblanc and Abir Abdullah, in 2010 he received a grant from the American State Department to study at the University of Virginia. He has also taken the documentary photography programme at the University van Gloucestershire in England. 283

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appendix

soul of things, Hongxun Gao says. For LOOKING ON he

248 Alfred Dong (Curator) the harmony between man and heaven – experimental landscape from china

made a selection of his best recent work.

Landscape photography has traditionally been very popu-

Pingdingshan. He is co-chairman of both the Pingdingshan City

lar in China, but it is a métier that normally follows well-

Photographers Association and the Pingdingshan City Artistic

trodden paths. The history of Chinese landscape art, with

Photography Society. His work has been shown frequently, both

its imperative compositions and deep respect for nature,

in China and elsewhere, and has appeared in periodicals like

hangs like a shadow over photography. In the experimen-

China Photography and Chinese Photographer.

Hongxun Gao (China, 1970) works for the publicity

department of the Weidong district in the Chinese city

tal photography that Alfred Dong collected this tradition friction between tradition and modernity, and a sense of

254 Peiquan Wang Artificial Beauty | 2011

loss and confusion, are central elements. The title refers to

It is a bitter truth, Peiquan Wang observes: we are disgusted

a quote from Lao Tzu, who thought that human alterations

by garbage, but we keep on producing it all the time. By pho-

in the landscape disturbed the natural harmony between

tographing the beauty of garbage, he tries to let us see it in a

heaven and earth.

different way. Here and there he encounters trees that have

been adorned with plastic bags and other trash. In his photos

is twisted, or trampled underfoot. It is work in which the

Alfred Dong (China, 1984) is guest director of International

Exhibitions at China Lishui Museum of Photography. The

they becomes the flowers in an artificial landscape.

exhibition is supported and organized by the Museum and

Lishui International Photography Festival. In his still brief career,

Lishui International Photography Festival. He has shown his work

Alfred Dong has already curated a handful of highly important

in Houston, Antwerp, and China.

Peiquan Wang (China, 1970) is the artistic director of the

exhibitions, including The Sound of China: China’s Video Art, photographer he has shown his own work, in solo and group

256 Weixing Fu In The Name of Mountain and River | 2010

exhibitions, in Florence, Barcelona, New York, Shanghai, and

Any marriage between tradition and modernity is doomed to

other cities.

failure, says Weixing Fu. In his bonsai-like reproductions of

in Milan, and China’s Face, for the Athens Photo Festival. As a

traditional landscapes he makes use of industrial and other

250 Chaosheng Lu The Lost Way | 2011

modern elements, such as a shearlegs or an electrical cable.

We are only passing through this world, says Chaosheng Lu.

Photographers’ Association. His work has been seen in several

We search for a place of our own, but for the most part lack

large Chinese photo festivals, including the Lishui International

direction. His apparently faulty, often blurred photos are the

Photography Festival and the Lianzhou Photography Festival.

Weixing Fu (China, 1973) is a member of the Chinese

translation of the confusion that he feels. He identifies with future, but I can not find my way out.’ Ultimately, says Lu, he

258 Weixing Zhang The Mausoleum of the Song Dynasty | 2011

is still a little lost boy.

The Song dynasty mausoleum is one of the most photo-

graphed structures in China. Most of the photos use the

the famous lament, ‘like a fly behind a window, I can see the

Chaosheng Lu (China, 1965) began photographing in 2004

and contributed to the Lishui International Photographic Exhibition

same straightforward visual language, and testify to respect

as both a photographer and curator. Since 2010 he has been

and honour for nature and history. How could you capture

making photos with pinhole cameras, which have been published

the mausoleum in a fresh, new way? Zhang Weixing chose

in LIFE, Shanghai Photography and other journals.

an approach that resulted in experimental black and white photos which appear to be hand made rather than the prod-

252 Hongxun Gao Looking On | 2011

uct of technical means. The work seems to carry an implicit

By their circular form, the photos in LOOKING ON suggest a

cultural heritage.

concentrated focus, especially on small things: birds among

branches, a reflection in a window pane, a salamander under

the Henan Museum in the Chinese metropolis of Zhengzhou,

water, the extreme tip of a mountain. By focusing one’s gaze

and during the Pingyao International Photographic Exhibition. In

this way, that which is far away becomes closer, and that

addition he has contributed to many group exhibitions, particularly

which is small becomes greater. Only then can you feel the

in Zhengzhou, but also in Beijing and Shanghai.

critique of the way in which current generations deal with Weixing Zhang (China, 1963) has had solo exhibitions in

285

This book accompanies Terra Cognita, main exhibition of the Noorderlicht International Photofestival 2012, September 2 through October 7, 2012 in the province of Friesland, the Netherlands. Venues: Museum Belvédère | Heerenveen, Museum Dr8888 | Drachten, Museum Willem van Haren | Heerenveen and Blokhuispoort | Leeuwarden Work from all participating photographers is included. The Noorderlicht International Photofestival is organized by Stichting Fotografie Noorderlicht | Noorderlicht Photography Foundation. Staff: Ton Broekhuis | director Wim Melis | curator Irene Kromhout | coordination festival and offices Olaf Veenstra | coordination gallery Charissa Caron | press and publicity Geert Kliphuis | digital processing Richard Hofman | financial administration Els Wirix | financial administration Heleen van Dijk | office The Noorderlicht team is completed throughout the year by: Ype van Gorkum & Maria Merino Aranguren, Zwaar Duwen | exhibition coordination Marco Wiegers, Archangel | exhibition coordination and design Sjors Swierstra | projects Marieke van der Velden | projects Auke Hulst | texts Dirk de Jong, Studio-D2 vormgeving | graphic design Hans Miedema, m;v ontwerper’s BNO | graphic design Hanneke Moed | education Regina Broersma | gallery desk and crew coordination Sipke Veenstra | office and DTP Suzanne Bodde, Maarten de Kok, Victor van Loon, Maaike Pomstra-van de Scheur en Margriet van Weenen | gallery crew For the festival 2012 we were reinforced by: Janco van Barneveld | exhibition design Arnoud Bakker | assistant digital editing Bert Platzer | text editing Moniek Baars and Mireille de Jong | marketing Maarten de Kok | production assistance Victor van Loon | production assistance Margriet van Weenen | production assistance

On the board are: Arie Wink | chairman Bas-Wouter Littel | treasurer Wim van de Pol | secretary Henk Heethuis Tjalle Hidma Rimmer Mulder Pieter Tuinman Jan Geert Vierkant Noorderlicht is supported by: Ministerie van OCW Gemeente Groningen Provincie Groningen Provincie Fryslân Gemeente Leeuwarden Media partner: Vrij Nederland For their close cooperation and excellent work Noorderlicht thanks: Drukkerij Tienkamp, Groningen Beikes & Van Vliet Lijstenmakers, Groningen Boekhandel Godert Walter, Groningen For their hospitable cooperation Noorderlicht thanks: Museum Belvédère, Oranjewoud Museum Dr8888, Drachten Museum Willem van Haren, Heerenveen Blokhuispoort, Leeuwarden Stichting Alde Fryske Tsjerken, Leeuwarden Kerken Haskerdijken, Kortezwaag, Rottevalle, Schurega, Terband, Ter Idzard We also wish to thank all those who made an effort to support us in our fight to stay alive. We especially want to name Lars Boering, Anton Brand, Marc Prüst, Nynke Stellingsma and, for their support publication, the participants of the Noorderlicht Masterclass season 2011-2012: Anne Ackermann, Nana Kofi Acquah, Tessa Bunney, Juliane Hermann, Cornelie de Jong, Bas Jongerius, Dolph Kessler, Maarten de Kok, Mark Nozeman, George Philipas, Ronny Rozenberg, Corné Sparidaens, Christine Urdal, Andre Vieira, Marieke ten Wolde.

287

Terra Cognita is een fotografietentoonstelling over de relatie tussen mens en natuur. Hoe ervaren wij de natuur en wat is de waarde ervan? Tegenover het romantische verlangen naar pure natuur staat de praktische wens de wereld te cultiveren en te bedwingen. Terra Cognita toont natuur ver weg en dichtbij, als droom en als werkelijkheid, de natuur in onze genen en gedachten. Voor deze negentiende editie van de Noorderlicht Fotomanifestatie is werk geselecteerd van 115 fotografen uit de hele wereld. De fotografie is divers en genre-overstijgend. Documentair of geĂŤnsceneerd, de natuur blijkt voor fotografen een springlevende inspiratiebron. Hun beeldverhalen nemen ons mee op reis door een fantastische wereld.

Terra Cognita is a photography exhibition about the relation between man and nature. How do we experience nature, and what is its value for us? Our romantic longing for pure nature is diametrically opposed to the practical desire to control the world and cultivate it. Terra Cognita looks at nature far away and close by, as a dream and as reality, nature in our genes, and in our minds. Work by 115 photographers from all over the world has been selected for the 19th edition of the Noorderlicht Photofestival. The photography is diverse, and flows across the limits of genres. Whether the work is documentary or staged, nature appears to be a vital source of inspiration for photographers. Their visual statements take us along on a journey through a fantastic world.