Ingrid Weyland

TOPOGRAPHIES OF FRAGILITY

In my travels around the world, from southern Argentina to the ice sheet of Greenland, I have always been drawn to solitary and silent sceneries. They are to me places of shelter and protection, private sanctuaries. These feelings inspired me to devise a way in which I could try to reciprocate Nature’s offering. My work is therefore a tribute to these emotional refuges, to places that have suffered terrible environmental ravage. It may also be a farewell to them. Through the materiality of the printed image, I intend to highlight the violent damage inflicted upon the sceneries I photograph, by manipulating and distorting my own landscapes. These landscapes that at first glance would seem pristine and immaculate, upon a closer look reveal deterioration and disintegration. I see my work as a wake-up call - a way of challenging our relationship with the natural world. It is said that a wrinkled piece of paper can never regain its original shape; the trace persists. In the same way, nature which is disrespectfully invaded is forever broken, and many times unrecoverable.