Feature
»PiB’s Artist of the Week«
»PiBs Künstler*in der Woche«
Benjamin Renter
On the Road
Business, buildings and tourism on the coastal Spain
2021-2024
Spanien betreibt seine Tourismuswirtschaft ebenso intensiv wie seine Landwirtschaft. Es exportiert sein knappes Wasser in Form von billigem Obst und Gemüse in die Supermärkte, u.a. nach Deutschland. Während das Meer eutrophiert, trocknen Land und Küste aus. Waldbrände setzen immer früher im Jahr ein.
Großprojekte fressen sich in die Landschaft und verschlingen wichtige Ressourcen. Bauboom und Stagnation liegen eng beieinander. Bleiben die Investitionen in Krisenzeiten stecken, verwandeln sie sich in Geistersiedlungen. Als verlassene Neubaugebiete verfallen und erodieren sie zu Rohbauruinen.
Die Provinz Alicante wird seit den 50er Jahren unter dem Namen Costa Blanca vermarktet. Für den Tourismus am Strand besitzt sie mit Benidorm eine Stadt mit der weltweit größten Hochhausdichte. An der Strandpromenade in Calpe stoßen neue und alte Bauten aneinander. Diese zeigen sich wiederholende Bauelemente. Ihre Fassaden und Terrassen wurden mit Fertigteilen der verschiedenen Epochen überfrachtet. In Valencia weichen historische Altbauten dem Neubau von Eigentumswohnungen, begleitet von passenden Werbetafeln. Zum Einkauf stauen sich lange Autoketten an den Zufahrten und Kreisverkehren vor dem Centro Commercial.
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Spain operates its tourism industry just as intensively as its agriculture. It exports its scarce water in the form of cheap fruit and vegetables to supermarkets, including Germany. While the sea is eutrophying, the land and coast are drying out. Forest fires start earlier and earlier in the year.
Large-scale projects are eating into the landscape and devouring important resources. Construction boom and stagnation go hand in hand. If investments get stuck in times of crisis, they turn into ghost settlements. Abandoned development areas decay and erode into ruins.
The province of Alicante has been marketed under the name Costa Blanca since the 1950s. For beach tourism, it has Benidorm, a city with the highest density of high-rise buildings in the world. New and old buildings come together on the beach promenade in Calpe. These show repetitive building elements. Their façades and terraces are overloaded with prefabricated elements from different eras. In Valencia, historic old buildings give way to new condominiums, accompanied by matching billboards. When it comes to shopping, long chains of cars jam the access roads and traffic circles in front of the Centro Commercial.
Colin Aherne
Three circles around the sea
In the autumn of 2022 and spring of 2023 I spent two months in Georgia documenting the current tensions in the country, following the influx of Russian immigrants after the start of the war in Ukraine. Since February 2022, many Russian immigrants have moved there. Some are availing of the relaxed visa requirements so they can leave Russia for a new life, while others are using it as a springboard to other European countries. Although the tracking is not accurate, as of September 2022 it is estimated that since the start of the war in Ukraine, more than 200,000 Russians have arrived in Georgia, a country with a population of just 3.7 million. Tensions are high, the cost of living has dramatically increased and for many locals, the presence of the new arrivals brings back painful memories of the war in 2008.
“They are using this country as a comfort zone and Georgia is dying, they are all coming and we’re just standing and watching, what can we do?”
Colin Aherne is an Irish photographer based in Berlin, Germany, where he works on projects that are a mix of personal, documentary and partially staged works, with a focus on place, connection and small stories within a larger context. He also makes music and at times combines the two, making an immersive experience of photography and music.
Maud Evrard
Kosmogonía
In Ancient Greek, the word kosmogonía means creation of the world, from kósmos (order, world, universe) + gónos (creation, begetting).
The Kosmogonía series interweaves the human, the animal and the vegetal. In a dreamlike form, it suggests the deep links between the different living organisms, their intrinsic communication as well as the notion of interdependence.
Immersed in nature, human figures – some of which metamorphose into hybrid creatures – resonate with the living things that surround them.
The association of these scattered fragments, memories of sensory experiences, assembled as in a puzzle, reveals a world where everything exists in correlation… like these communicating networks formed by flocks of birds, or these infinite arboreal ramifications and underground layers of roots and rhizomes.
Carola Plöchinger
In Life, Change Is The Only Constant
Walking through volcanic landscape brought up thoughts in me that were there before, but I couldn’t put into words. Just like our construction of reality, the ground on which we live is only seemingly solid. Always looking for stability and security, this insight scares many people. But only when we let go of the thought of being able to classify and control everything, the fragility of the landscape itself becomes apparent. And it is only when we embrace the idea of constant change that we are truly free.
What unites the Maori narratives, which differ somewhat among the tribes, is that they see the volcanoes around Tongariro as living creatures – in one version, high priest Ngatoroirangi traveled inland for the first exploration of the island. Climbing to the summit of Tongariro, he nearly froze to death from icy winds and called for help from his sisters in the distant Maori homeland of Hawaiki. They complied with his request in the form of fire under the earth, forming geysers and volcanoes along the way, and emerged at Tongariro to warm the priest. To this day, the volcanic landscape has a genealogical connection with the Maori’s historic homeland and the mountains are revered as tribal ancestors.
Personally, I believe less in the embodiment of the landscape as in the dissolution of the supposed boundaries between humans and nature – “like living cells in a larger body” (Joanna Macy). All living creatures are members of the same family in an interconnected world and thus should be treated with humility and respect.
‘In Life, Change Is The Only Constant’ (Heraclitus).
Tanja Schnitzler
Rheinisches Revier – Ansichten eines Dorfes
Tanja Schnitzlers freies Fotoprojekt ‚Rheinisches Revier – Ansichten eines Dorfes‘ zeigt Bewohner*innen aus drei der verbliebenen sechs Dörfer des Braunkohleabbaugebiets Garzweiler II: Keyenberg, Kuckum und Berverath. Seit Jahren sind sie vom Abriss bedroht – und harren aus. Garzweiler II ist ein knapp 50 Quadratkilometer umfassender Tagebau im nördlichen Nordrhein-Westfalen, der vom Energiekonzern RWE betrieben wird. Durch den Braunkohleabbau wurden hier seit Ende der sechziger Jahre mehr als 30 Dörfer, Weiler und Höfe und damit rund 7.500 Menschen in bestehende oder neu errichtete Wohngebiete umgesiedelt. Seit einigen Jahren kämpfen nun die Bewohner*innen der vom Abbau bedrohten Dörfer um ihr Zuhause, auch mit ökologischer Zielsetzung: „Enteignung bedeutet Vertreibung. Vertreibung ist ein Verbrechen – an uns als Dorfbewohnern und auch an unserem Klima“, so die Aktivistin Waltraud Kieferndorf aus Kuckum.
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Tanja Schnitzler’s photo project shows residents from three of the remaining six villages in the Garzweiler II brown coal mining area: Keyenberg, Kuckum and Berverath. They have been threatened with demolition for years – and are holding out. Garzweiler II is an almost 50 square kilometer opencast mine in northern North Rhine-Westphalia, which is operated by the energy company RWE. As a result of brown coal mining, more than 30 villages, hamlets and farms and thus around 7,500 people have been relocated to existing or newly built residential areas since the late 1960s. For several years now, the residents of villages threatened by demolition have been fighting for their homes, also with ecological goals: “Expropriation means displacement. Expulsion is a crime – against us as villagers and also against our climate,” said activist Waltraud Kieferndorf from Kuckum.
Philipp Czampiel
Park Therapy
Philipp Czampiel fotografiert seit Januar 2023 wöchentlich den Großen Tiergarten in Berlin. Dabei bemerkt er besonders den Einfluss, den die natürlich Umgebung auf seine Besucher hat, weshalb er die Flora und Fauna und die Flucht aus dem Berliner Alltag der Modernen Welt, zum Thema des Projektes macht. Die Strecke ist dabei Teil eines Fotograf:innen-Kollektivs, und damit eines von 13 weiteren Bild-Strecken, die aktuell in Berlin entstehen.
(Work in Progress, 2023 – laufend)
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Philipp Czampiel has been photographing Berlin’s Tiergarten every week since January 2023. In doing so, he particularly notices the influence that the natural surroundings have on his visitors, which is why he is photographing the flora and fauna and the escape from everyday life in Berlin’s modern world. The series is part of a collective project of photographers and one of 13 other photo series currently being created in Berlin.
(Work in Progress, 2023 – ongoing)