GATED NATURE_KEEP OUT

Installation: photographic digital prints, fences, camera surveillance system

Nature's intermediate states, in-between situations, different conditions meet one another. Either almost not at all noticeable, or through distinct transitions from one state to another, or also hermetically separated from each other. Gated Nature_Keep Out is specifically about two different territories. Hanhikivi peninsula in our immediate surroundings in Ostrobothnia, a nuclear power plant under construction, and Truppenübungsplatz Grafenwöhr (Grafenwöhr Training Area), the largest military training area in Western Europe, located in my German home districts in Oberpfalz / Bavaria.

Sooner or later, in connection with these territories, one is confronted with a more or less visible border consisting of different signs and objects. Or one comes across a material barrier. Based on these boundaries, different questions and perceptions about the function of the border are raised: is there an outer and an inner? What and who is inside and outside? Seen from the inside – protection, seen from the outside – exclusion, a dichotomy between the outside and the inside, the public and the private, culture and nature? While the surrounding obstacle indicates the general incompatibility between both spaces.

In terms of content and form, the invisible and physical barrier is a concrete building block in the installation. The documentary in photography, in interaction with the fence, creates both a narrative and an abstract form. There is no timeline, beginning or end. The viewer goes into the picture.

Everything is in a continuous change and movement, as it is nature. Without movement, there is no process and progress. Learn from nature! “The basic principles of all nature are the changeable and the movement; those who do not recognize them do not recognize nature.” (Aristoteles)