Exhibitions
Rethinking Nature / Rethinking Landscape
An exhibition held as part of the eighth European Month of Photography (EMoP) in Luxembourg
Practical information
The gallery will be open to the public (while maintaining social distancing rules):
on Saturdays and Sundays from 9AM to 6PM until 5 September 2021.
Quick access
> click here to meet the artists and view their work
> click here to learn more about Inka & Niclas, winners of the EMoP Arendt Award
The theme
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The theme chosen for the eighth edition of the European Month of Photography in Luxembourg is Rethinking Nature / Rethinking Landscape. Beyond its clear link to the current issue of the relationship between human beings and their environment, this theme serves to showcase aesthetic practices in the landscape genre that, while new, have been detectable in the photography medium since its inception. Since the more radical positions of the artists of the New Topographics movement in the 60s and the arrival of digital media in the 90s, the codes of landscape representation have changed dramatically. From this, a new kind of landscape photography has emerged in the form of a mixed media experience. While the transformation of Earth’s ecosystem by humans is leaving indelible marks, it is important to seek new ways of seeing these phenomena, both from a societal point of view in the context of the Anthropocene, as well from an artistic standpoint through photography as a political stance and commitment. With Rethinking Nature / Rethinking Landscape, EMoP continues to explore photography in relation to political, ecological and artistic changes in our society. Past exhibitions such as Mutations (2006-2011) and DistURBANces (2012-2013) have already brought the works of innovative photographers facing the challenges of globalisation and climate change to the attention of the general public. |
However, like previous editions, this year’s selection is not grounded in an existing ideology. Rather, it reflects the outcome of discussions between European and national partners, consciously prioritising emerging international artists. From photography-sculpture and photography-drawing to installations, from serial and conceptual black & white photography to hyper-colourful images using variable printing techniques: the landscape photography exhibited here does not proceed smoothly but, on the contrary, is provocative, questioning our relationship to nature. However, even as they confront viewers with disruption on a planetary scale, these photographic positionings are not an exercise in scaremongering, nor even predictive of an all-too-gloomy end. They serve instead to mirror various aesthetic attitudes ranging from ethical ecology to poetic-philosophical resistance. In their photographic representations of the threatened natural world, the artists invite us to reconsider the landscape genre while pointing to a more complex dimension that casts beauty as a reflection of sensitivity and environmental awareness. |
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European Month of Photography Arendt Award – selected artists and artworks exhibited
Out of a pool of around fifty artists dealing with the chosen theme, the EMoP jury (Berlin, Lisbon, Luxembourg, Paris and Vienna) has selected five artists for the European Month of Photography Arendt Award. Their works are exhibited at Arendt House. Candidates selected (click to enlarge the picture):
Click here to download the complete list of artworks_ | © the artists
Ever since 2013, the prestigious European Month of Photography Arendt Award has been granted to young, up-and-coming artists whose work is of outstanding quality and whose portfolios demonstrate an ongoing process of artistic development and research.
Arendt has been affiliated with the European Month of Photography since 2013. It sponsors the EMoP Award in order to provide a unique platform to the artists, who are chosen from a pool of artistic talent showcased at the EMoP network exhibition.
By rewarding young laureates and by funding EMoP exhibitions in Luxembourg, Arendt shows its support for photography as an art form that has the ability to stir the imagination and stimulate curiosity and exchange.
In choosing Rethinking Nature / Rethinking Landscape as the theme for this year’s joint project, the European Month of Photography Association has sought to harness the power of photography to extend the debate on ecological issues through new and inventive ways of looking at nature and landscape.
The five artists selected display a deep interest in the complexities of the relationship between man and nature, each one reconsidering in his or her own way the modes of representation and fictions related to nature and landscape.
Vanja Bučan’s photographs plunge the viewer into a dreamlike, phantasmagorical universe with curiously arranged ecosystems. Inka & Niclas presents disturbed visions of landscapes that are both strange and sublime, while Danila Tkachenko’s photographs of ruined Russian rural villages bear witness to an historical era that has vanished. Anastasia Mityukova’s and Maria-Magdalena Ianchis’ representations of Greenland’s icebergs and icescapes employ different forms of mental and real imagery to create installations in which the core concepts of archive and memory are employed in an attempt to embody the “stigmata” of the Anthropocene, and to fill the void left by photography’s failure to represent the complexity of nature.
This year’s EMoP jury includes Paul di Felice (president / Luxembourg), Bettina Leidl (vice-pre-sident / Vienna) and committee members Emmanuelle Halkin (Paris), Verena Kaspar-Eisert (Vienna) and Rui Prata (Lisbon). The winner will be announced in June 2021.
Interview of Paul di Felice (in French)
About EMoP
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Rooted in a European network of photography festivals since 2006, EMoP has redesigned partnerships with members such as Circula¬tion(s) (Paris), Imago Lisboa (Lisbon), FotoWien (Vienna) and Europäischer Monat der Fotografie (Berlin). This festival has been able to position itself as a major international platform for European photography that has grown in character and dimension year after year and has resulted in a series of both solo and group exhibitions on a given topic such as this one. Learn more here_ |
The winners of the EMoP Arendt Award 2021 are Inka & Niclas
Inka & Niclas presents disturbed visions of landscapes that are both strange and sublime.
The artistic work of Inka & Niklas is distinguished by its innovative character and creative photographic expression, its specificity in conceptualisation, its intense relationship with the theme and its inspirational power.
Inka & Niclas
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The materiality of photography is crucial in Inka and Niclas Lindergård’s work which tells of the contemporary perception processes of nature and the connection of the photographic medium with the stylisation of landscape.
Bright utopian landscapes in their works address the spectators’ experience, making them notice not only the beauty but also the culture. An open portal to the hyperrealistic synthesis of beauty, kitsch and visual desire in the language of photography.
Their second book ‘The Belt of Venus and the Shadow of the Earth’ (2016, Kerber Verlag) revolve around performative photographic acts that can only be experienced through the photograph, an investigation into the of the act of taking a photograph and the camera’s role as a bridge between the physical world and the photographic. It was awarded the Swedish Book Art Award 2016 and nominated to The Swedish Photo Book Price 2018.
Behind the scenes
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Texts: Paul di Felice and Pierre Stiwer (Café-Crème asbl) directors of EMoPLux 2021
Pictures: Eric Chenal
An exhibition held as part of the eighth European Month of Photography (EMoP) in Luxembourg
