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| from left to right: Tumulus & Cabin and Woods |
Photographing worn out or abandoned and dilapidated wooden
houses in the dense forest is an ideal project. The romanticism and fantasy of
living in the woods can take hold at an early age and stick with someone for
the rest of their life. Escape and isolation, a sense of self-reliance and
sustainability all come to mind when thinking of an ideal existence as a hermit
removed from the comfortable sounds and interactions most of us rely on from
one another. As a kid, my retreat was a wooden cabin in the backyard. Adorned
with deer, turtle and cow skulls I found on the family farm, and with a napping
spot for my dog, I would spend afternoons plotting grand schemes too outlandish
to share with my friends. For these reasons I'm still drawn to this nostalgia of
isolation. When I see relating artistic projects that deal with notions of
escape and self-reliance, whether it's Little Brown Mushroom's
Lost Boy Mountain, Lucas Foglia's
A Natural Order or even Elin Hoyland's
The Brothers, an
unexplainable excitement momentarily takes over. And while tediously studying
the shelves this week I came across a few more books that sparked my
excitement.
Cabin and Woods by Coley Brown and Cristiano Guerri contains a series of short lived moments that weave together a bizarre portrait of the backwoods experience. There is a certain mystery that
accompanies the nostalgic overtones of this modest two-volume set. Landscapes
of dense forests with a trace of quirky human interactions take up most of the
photographs here. There are occasionally cabins with depictions of their odd
and rustic designs and occasional reminders of the occupants living in them.
The photographs in this set are printed full-bleed and contain eloquent
elements throughout both volumes. Smoke billowing through the woods and a long
retired bus that resembles a relic from a Ken Kesey flashback indicate a haunting
landscape, one that is easy to escape in, even if you're viewing it only from
the outside.
Tumulus by Roger Eberhard & James Nizam contains simply
beautiful photographs of the life of wooden homes deep within the Canadian
forests. The subjects of the photographers' images have been abandoned and left
for nature to take its slow and diligent course. The book begins with homes
recently abandoned and moves to photographs that show the eventual
physical state of the still standing cabins. The quality of light is stunning
and brings out an ominous undertone, almost as if the viewer can sense the
demise of each individual residence. The homes eventually rest in large structural heaps of wood that resemble elements of burial mounds
and lost ruins, causing the viewer to ponder beyond the striking picture and
question how such a relic came to be. -- Antone Dolezal
