THE VISUAL GRAMMAR OF WILDERNESS
part 2
The work refers to the colonialist concept of wilderness. The first part of the project explores the role of photography in the (re)production of the wilderness myth. The second part speculates about a future in which nature in human habitats is valued as much as nature in a remote “wilderness“.
Based on artistic research with found photographs (in part 1), I reconstructed the visual grammar of wilderness photography: the motif structures, color schemes, and compositions used by photographers to create images of wild nature. This visual grammar became my own guideline for the creation of fictional wilderness landscapes. I applied the visual grammar of wilderness to take photographs of natural scenes, but all photographs were taken in places that are not associated with “wilderness“: in large European and Asian cities. Then I used these photographs to create fictional wild landscapes.
The installation work "A Wild Space“ expands the medium of photography towards sculpture. With a sculptural approach to photography and the transformation of the motif and surface, I intend to create fictional landscapes and environments. All sculptural forms within the “wild space“ imitate the forms of nature and refer to the visual stereotypes of wilderness photography. The installation plays with the idealizing aesthetics of wilderness photography but has its roots in places with high population density. What is nature? How does the wild look and feel? Where do we think we come close to nature?
