human(‘)(s) (and) landscape(s)

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humans and landscapes deals with the approach of humans to nature:

How do people make nature accessible to them? How do they try to understand nature and what is it all about when they seek out special, unique landscapes? How do we understand nature and landscapes? Is it the medium of photography and its everyday handling that causes precisely this separation and at the same time an appropriation of nature?

Since 2014 JSP has been dealing with these questions. On his travels to national parks, mainly in North America, he collects photographic impressions and thus approach the topic. He pursues a documentary approach and distances himself from the actual socio-critical questions by taking a step back from the scenery to include the stage of the depicted human scenes in the landscapes.

From a wealth of pictures, light boxes – some of them room-related as installations – have been conceived as part of exhibitions. The questions that the photographs address seem subliminal. A carefully restrained social study, which despite its clear theme creates a thoughtful mood and carefully incorporates the depictive medium.

The final thesis focuses on the urbanization of the national parks themselves. Again documentary, but less reserved, the view is directed away from the landscapes and people, into the visitor centres, into the temples of the national parks, and thus the appropriation of nature, which is taken to extremes, is made tangible.

With the help of a medium whose immensity tries to do justice to the violence of the landscape itself, mass tourism reaches a new level: Films presented in cinemas, staged on one side, which turn information centres into independent attractions.

human(‘)(s) (and) landscape(s) is now a video work that shows a domestication of nature by humans, but through its level-headed and objective viewing itself, it leaves it up to the viewer to form an opinion. The films are shown in full length, including the cinema auditoriums. These will be juxtaposed with a separate, alternative documentary film, in which the urban travel structures themselves will be included. This juxtaposition addresses the contrast between staged reality as an attraction and a reserved view of urban influences on nature.

2020 /

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