Echoes (In A Post Factual Landscape)

Photography, 60 x 90 cm (Framed, Nut Wood, Fine Art Print Hahnemühle PhotoRag)
Shown at Fabrik der Künste, Hamburg, Group Exhibition/Project, 2024
Notes For Supplement Existing Knowledge, Program by Carsten Rabe
Supported by Goethe Institute Denmark & Behörde für Kultur & Medien Hamburg

The reservoir in the north of Spain, not far from the Pyrenees, was created in the 1960s to supply the Catalonia region, including the city of Barcelona, with drinking water. Several villages were flooded for this purpose, including a church dating back to the 10th century. In recent years, the drought in the region has increased dramatically and the level of the reservoir has fallen significantly, causing growing problems for the local communities. In 2023, the water level dropped to an alarmingly low level in March, as never before. At the time of the field study and the production of the picture on site, Kemper found out that the water level was only 10% of its actual level and that the feed into Barcelona’s water supply network had been stopped.

So it is the climate crisis and the resulting drought that creates this landscape impression, makes the medieval building visible again and thus reminds us of the age of religous faith. A time in which natural science was generally denied and knowledge was subordinated to theology. The ignoring of science is reflected in our increasingly post-factual times, whose tendencies we clearly feel and see.

The imagery of the photograph contains a reference to Romantic painting of the 19th century, in which the motif of the infinite beauty of nature is related to the mortality of us humans. The ephemeral appears within the picture through the ruins of the church in the middle of the reservoir and at the same time transfers the scene back to the present. For the church as such would no longer be part of this picture if the water were still covering it. At this point, the picture breaks with Romanticism, because the suggestive and emotional elements, which has been typical for this era, are now given a layer of serious, scientific reference.