A picture a day wishes all of you a very happy new year with lots of luck and as little misfortune, disaster, harm, wreckage or sorrow as possible! Be sure to use the accurate letter-box.
This week, a picture a day’s guest is Bärbel Praun with her series goldgelb. Bärbel was born in Landshut, Germany; studied Photography and Media at the University of Applied Sciences in Bielefeld, Germany. She was Artist in Residence in Clervaux, Cité de l’image, Luxembourg, at Schloss Laudon, Vienna in 2012 and in Jakobstad, Finland in 2013. Various group exhibitions, e.g. gruss und kuss die berge sind schön, Stadtmuseum Münster; some friends, Warte für Kunst, Kassel 2011; in the woods, Austrian Federal Minitstry of Education, Arts and Culture, Vienna 2012. Different solo shows, currently in Clervaux, Luxembourg and Bruges, Belgium. She lives and works in Munich, Germany and Saas Fee, Switzerland.
During a one month stay in Finland in autumn 2013 I found myself emotionally confronted with my past. Even though the small city at the westcoast of Finland was such a different place than the town I grew up in, it reminded me of my hometown, childhood and family. So this work is telling little stories about presence and absence, surfaces and materials, light and liquidity, fleetingness and moments that could last forever. You could find transparent objects and covered or wrapped ones, some are gone already, some just appeared back again, some seem like transitions or -on contrary- borders. So are memories, you can’t grasp them properly, never can be sure there were voids, gaps or traps. For me it was an indefinite experience, always being in a moment of comfort on the one hand and scariness on the other.
This week, a picture a day’s guest is Pascal Amoyel with his series Levés d’Ouest (Western Surveys).
Levés d’Ouest was initiated in the western part of France called Brittany, a region that combines long coastlines, hilly areas and vast spaces, part of which remains untouched. The dispersed pattern of settlements, despite an old and obvious human history, gives human presence a singular and ephemeral aspect.
Travelling back east from this end of Old-Europe, Levés d’Ouest focuses on places that combine signs of human habitation and vividness of nature. This work analyze how natural characteristics have affected and modified human settlement, and had an influence on their occupations.
On the other hand, these pictures document how men altered these sites, leaving ancient marks of land settlement or contemporary tracks upon landscape. They record how man designed landscape in order to suit its needs, thus taking possession of places and domesticating them.
Gathering these two facets of the relationship between man and its territory, Levés d’Ouest aims to capture its impermanent essence and to describe how men try to live in an ever changing space.
This week, a picture a day’s guest is Pascal Amoyel with his series Levés d’Ouest (Western Surveys). Pascal graduated in photography from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de la Photographie (Arles). He lives and works in Paris as a portrait photographer, writes on photography and curates photography exhibitions.
Survey : topographic surveys are meant to locate the main physical features on the ground, such as lkes, rivers, roads, forest or large rocks. They provide data for map making.
