Kacper Kowalski is both a photographer and a pilot. He has spent thousands of hours airborne, camera in hand. From the height of about 150 meters (while steering his paraglider or his gyroplane) he has captured landscapes unseen from the ground, colorful streaks accompanying the changing of the seasons and the blurred boundaries of where civilization and nature overlap. He has shown us reduced to blurred dots immersed in the architectural context in which we exist , all enclosed in visually spectacular frames.
The photography book Over is the result of an evolution in Kacper Kowalski’s practice. It is his first personal and subjective project and, at the same time, a new, creative way of expressing himself on the subject that he has explored until now – the relationship between man and nature. It is a futuristic vision of a time in which man has ceased to dominate, perhaps even to exist, and nature has reduced his presence to a few temporary traces.
In this collection of 48 photographs we find references to civilization, but none of the images feature people. Elongated objects assembled into groups, felled trees and tire mark-like textures that appear as if they have been long-abandoned and slowly reappropriated by nature. The photographs are no longer accompanied by geographical coordinates, and the snow blurs the landscape’s details. What would happen if mankind vanished? What would be left behind? What would the predicted end of the Anthropocene look like? How will nature react to man’s actions, invoked by Kowalski in his book “side effects” and of which we are reminded on a daily basis by the media? Overload of details , the eye-catching factor in the artist’s previous projects, here seems to multiply our doubts and instill a state of melancholy, but also – and for good reason of fear.
Kacper Kowalski, Over
Self-published
55,00 €
