This immersive book published by André Frère Éditions opens a window onto a dark and sharp territory, which seems to have emerged from the era of the industrial revolution. On his first visit to the very closed port of Dunkirk, a place almost entirely dedicated to steel and coal, it is the concept of the Anthropocene – this “era of the human” – that imposed itself on the photographer. With his feet in the mud of ores, Vincent Jendly throws us into this gigantic and filthy place, a landscape transformed to the extreme, offering a vision almost suggesting an imminent collapse. A straightforward book that gives a glimpse of the extent of the marks we leave on a terrestrial scale, now making us a true geological force.
Vincent Jendly writes:
Discovering the port of Dunkirk, my feet in the coal mud, I had the impression of staring at a dark figure from the past, emerging from the time of the industrial revolution. I had before me a landscape covered with black molasses and dust, brutal and filthy, transformed to the extreme, a dark and spectacular incarnation of the Anthropocene, this “era of the human”, one of those visions that suggest an imminent collapse, with an almost apocalyptic allure. A hypothetical perspective but still: the scale of the marks on this gigantic territory made me perceive the stamp of my fellow humans on a terrestrial scale. Moreover, this is indeed the case: the impact of our activities is such that man is becoming a geological force. We are creating new types of sediments such as plastiglomerate, a stratum of rocks that will be composed largely of microplastics, spread across the globe.
Another novelty for the paleontologists of the future: because of the disappearance of wild megafauna and our impact on species in general, 93% of the biomass of terrestrial vertebrates is already made up of domestic species, cows in the lead, which cover our unreasonable appetites for meat. It is even likely that within three centuries the cow will become the largest animal on Earth, an almost unbelievable prediction. In the excavations of the future, is that what will remain of us? Cow fossils and a millimeter of black particles?
Vincent Jendly : One millimeter of black dirt, and a veil of dead cows
André Frère Éditions
Photographs: Vincent Jendly
Texts: Aurélien Delpirou and Vincent Jendly
Design: Nicolas Polli
76 photographs, two-tone
144 pages on three different papers
22.6 x 30.5 cm
Softcover under screen-printed vinyl jacket
French/English
€55 — €200
https://www.andrefrereditions.com/livres/photographie/one-millimeter-of-dark-dirtand-a-veil-of-dead-cows/
