LANDSCAPE AND THE GEOGRAPHICAL TURN IN PHOTOGRAPHIC PRACTICE

Abstract

When dealing with the photographic practices that have been of interest over the last two decades in reflecting upon the transformation of territory, a new aim emerges clearly: to unravel the geopolitical dimension of each place. Growing social inequalities and ecological imbalance provoked by globalisation and economic neoliberalism have drawn the attention of many artists. Nevertheless, the interdependence of events in geographically distant places that simultaneously touch upon various spheres of exchange is a particularly difficult subject to grasp in photographic terms. This paper seeks to address this issue by focusing on three recent projects: Nitrate by Xavier Ribas, Copper Geographies by Ignacio Acosta and State Business by Mari Bastashevski. Their works and approaches, closely related to Allan Sekula’s seminal practice, contribute to defining how this new geographical premise can manifest in terms of landscape representation, and what challenges are at stake here.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Mitchell, “Imperial Landscape,” 5–34; and Besse, “L’espace du paysage,” 7–24.

2. The legacy of the most outstanding contributions that gave rise to the spatial turn would be precisely the attention to this interdependence between surroundings and its inhabitants. Soja, Postmodern Geographies; Burgin, In/different Spaces; and Warf and Arias, The Spatial Turn.

3. Scott and Swenson, Critical Landscapes.

4. Bonneuil and Fressoz, The Shock of the Anthropocene; Demos, Against the Anthropocene.

5. As the photographic practice of Robert Smithson shows exceptionally well. Sobieszek, Robert Smithson. Photoworks.

6. Fish Story, which, without doubt, was the culmination of his most ambitious research until then. Sekula, Fish Story.

7. There are several interpretations depending on the disciplinary field of study. Here we follow: Guasch, “El giro geográfico,” 161–204.

8. Sekula, Fish Story, 12.

9. We refer to a circulation of images, also echoing Sekula’s famous article: Sekula, “The Traffic in Photographs,” 15–25.

10. A good account of this is given in: DeLue and Elkins, Landscape Theory.

11. Olwig, “Recovering the Substantive Nature of Landscape,” 630–53.

12. Lefebvre, La production de l’espace.

13. Rogoff, Terra Infirma, 4.

14. Chevrier recognises that, as in the 1990s, the notion of “territory” has gained an unusual role in the artistic field, and warns against the dangers implied by an artistic instrumentalisation of this notion. His proposal will be articulated in a double sense: to historicise the notion of territory and to exploit its multiple senses, both those that complement and those that contradict each other. Chevrier, Des Territoires.

15. Biemann, Geography and the Politics of Mobility.

16. Although it has been noted that the diversity of approaches does not really permit the precise definition of the extent of the experimental geographies. Pearce, “Review of Experimental Geography,” and Thomson, Experimental Geographies.

17. Website of the artist: www.xavierribas.com (viewed 3 October 2018).

18. Website of the artist: www.ignacioacosta.com (viewed 3 October 2018). Ribas and Acosta’s works discussed here are part of a single project, Traces of Nitrate, developed together with Louise Purbrick. The project website: http://tracesofnitrate.org/ (viewed 2 October 2018).

19. Website of the artist: www.maribastashevski.com/state-business (viewed 3 October 2018).

20. Berque, Thinking Through Landscape.

21. For this reason, we will briefly introduce the visual references offered here inviting the reader to consult their websites and publications for further contextualisation.

22. See the website of the project: http://tracesofnitrate.org/About.

23. Whose title also reveals a clear tribute to Allan Sekula. Sekula, “The Traffic in Photographs,” 15–25; and Ribas et al., Trafficking the Earth.

24. Ribas et al., Trafficking the Earth, 103.

25. The exhibition Nitrate, curated by Carles Guerra, was presented in 2014 at the Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art, the Museo Universidad de Navarra, and the Bluecoat in Liverpool. Ribas, Nitrate.

26. In addition to being a director of the Bank of England, he was also a director of the company Antony Gibbs & Sons. Vallès, “Trazos invisibles.”

27. Sekula, “Traffic in Photographs.”

28. A History of Detonations (2014); Desert Trails (2012); Caliche Fields (2010); I Write Your Names On My City Walls (2010); Twenty-Eight Points (2010); Three Moves Are As Bad As a Fire (2013); The Far Silence of Brooding Star Time (2013); Northiana(2011); Gibbsiana (2011); From The High-Rises Like Rain (2013). www.xavierribas.com (viewed 12 January 2017).

29. Developed between 2003 and 2009. www.xavierribas.com (viewed 12 January 2017).

30. See the project website: http://tracesofnitrate.org/About (viewed 1 October 2018).

31. www.xavierribas.com (viewed 3 October 2018).

32. Interview with the author, 17 March 2013.

33. Ribas, Nitrate.

34. Guerra, “El despliegue del dispositivo documental,” 13–18.

35. Azoulay, Civil Imagination.

36. Guerra, Xavier Ribas, Nitrate. www.macba.cat/es/expo-ribas-nitrato (viewed 1 October 2018).

37. See the project website: www.tracesofnitrate.org/filter/Copper-Geographies/2016-The-Copper-Geographies-of-Chile-and-Great-Britain (viewed 6 October 2018).

38. Metallic Threads (2010–2015); Sulphuric Acid Route (2012); Coquimbo and Swansea (2014); Miss Chuquicamata, The Slag (2012); Antofagasta Plc. Stop Abuses! (2010–2014); High Rise (2012); Hidden Circuits (2015). www.ignacioacosta.com (viewed 12 January 2017).

39. Website of the artist: www.ignacioacosta.com/copper-geographies/copper_geographies_info (viewed 6 October 2018).

40. An ongoing project that has had various exhibitions. See the website of the artist: www.maribastashevski.com (viewed 3 October 2018).

41. Conversation with the author.

42. The details of this switch were not made publicly available.

43. Bastashevski, exhibition panel. www.bastashevski.com .

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Marta Dahó

Marta Dahó is a feeelance curator and researcher, part of the University of Barcelona research group Art Globalization Interculturality (AGI).