landscaping
Exhibition within the framework of the European Month of Photography (Luxemburg) in collaboration with the Emschergenossenschaft and Bridges-Fotoprojekt Emscher Zukunft
Indoor BRIDGES Fotoprojekt Emscher Zukunft - Stefan Bayer, Stefan Becker & Christine Steiner, Marita Bullmann, Ekkehart Bussenius & Tania Reinicke, Christian Diehl, Etta Gerdes, Annette Jonak, Olga Kessler, Brigitte Kraemer, Winfried Labus, Hendrik Lietmann, Tomek Mzyk, Tania Reinicke, Nico Schmitz, Frank Schultze, Jens Sundheim, Gregor Theune, Norbert Weke, Henk Wittinghofer
Outdoor JARDINS - Marc Baruth, Henning Rogge, Robert Voitlandscaping
The exhibition presents two distinct cultural projects that illustrate individual and diverse interpretations of the contemporary cultural landscape as it appears in urban, social and (post)industrial space.
Comprising on the one hand a set of photographs from the BRIDGES FOTOPROJEKT EMSCHER ZUKUNFT collection and on the other three open-air installations, an integral part of the JARDINS project, the exhibition shows the ambiguous, sometimes disturbed relationship between man and his environment, which he shapes according to his ideologies and his collective or personal motivations.
The term ‘landscaping’ is made up of the English word ‘landscape’ and an ending that suggests an action that is always in progress. The exhibition reflects the idea of a landscape that defines itself through constant change, its processes of transformation and its sometimes incoherent and paradoxical mutations.
‘Landscaping’ is not a collection of photographic images thematising the traditional landscape which, often approached in relation to the pictoriality of the motif, makes partial reference to the romantic interpretation of the theme and leads to meditative contemplation.
In contrast, ‘landscaping’ favours a much more agitated state of mind. Since the landscape here is selectively defined in terms of its variable and unstable situation, the approach takes on an interlocutory, negotiating or exploratory character. Confrontation with these works encourages subjective perception, which in turn can trigger unprecedented changes to the actual landscape, transmitted in time and place as a result of the viewer's new, dynamic awareness. In this sense, ‘landscaping’ is not limited to an ideological questioning of space, but implies a whole active dimension of intervention and interaction with the landscape.
The image can be interpreted as a window onto the world. It can also be seen as a mental projection by the artist, an imaginary construction that nevertheless takes on a real appearance through the medium of photography. Taken together, the photographs tell a story of landscape perception that exists on two temporal planes: that which is formed following the subject's confrontation with the current surrounding world, and that which anticipates contemporary reality, since it imagines what the future landscape will become.
The exhibition thus deals with both the birth and the decline of the cultural landscape, and more specifically with its phases of contradictory transition: the oscillation between private and public space, between abandonment and recovery, between construction and deconstruction, between the natural and the artificial, blurs the visible boundaries between different landscape worlds. Transitory places, with their inherent changes, tell a human story and transform themselves into cycles that parallel our own evolution.
Text: Annick Meyer
Renatur © Etta Gerdes
© Henning Rogge, Schauinsland: Jenner, Berchtesgadener Alpen exposé à l’Echappée belle, place du marché, Clervaux Projet JARDINS
© Nico Schmitz, Diorama / Sammlung BRIDGES Fotoprojekt Emscher Zukunft 2009
© Robert Voit, New Trees: Norscot Sandton, South Africa, 2006 Exposé dans les Arcades I, Grand-rue, Clervaux Projet JARDINS
© Marc Baruth, Le fils prodigue: Coucher de soleil Exposé dans les Arcades II, montée de l’église, Clervaux Projet JARDINS