Social Landscapes

What is beauty? Beauty is traditionally defined as a combination of qualities, such as shape, color, or form, which pleases the aesthetic senses, particularly the sense of sight. I felt compelled to capture the beauty that can be found in social landscapes; environments created by people that have been abandoned and left to the mercy of nature. Through my photography I strive to capture that which one would not traditionally define as beautiful. I create with daily, recognizable elements, an unprecedented situation in which the viewer is confronted with the conditioning of his own perception and has to reconsider their biased position.

 

By rejecting objective truths and global cultural narratives, the viewer absorbs the tradition of remembrance art into daily practice. This personal follow-up and revival of past traditions are important as an act of meditation. By contrasting the division between the realm of memory and the realm of experience, the viewer reflects on the closely related subjects of archive and memory. This often results in an examination of both the human need for ‘conclusive’ stories and the question of how beauty can be defined.