Seascape
(Maastricht / Gubbelstraat 8A01)
Through photography, installations and video work Anika Schwarzlose (1982, Germany) investigates the methods and structures we invent to organize our surroundings. She has a rock-solid faith in the capacity of images to transcend the imagination and thus stretch our view of reality.
Seascape features a maritime landscape. Schwarzlose is drawn by the special relationship that Dutch people have with water. The sea, the rivers and the groundwater have to be controlled in order to be safe from them. What does it entail, Schwarzlose wonders, to discipline the environment to such a degree. Thematically she plays with the concepts op ‘controlling’ and ‘manipulating’ the landscape, but her photo work clearly testify to manipulation of her own. In Seascape she somehow diverts the sea by putting onto the shore large tiles in the same colour palette as the sea. The tiles remind us of the course pixels in low-quality digital images. The photo’s story is twofold: it narrates on the one hand the beauty and rich colour nuances of the sea and the light it catches and on the other hand the digital makeability of the pixelated world.