IN THE BAMBOO FOREST (2009)
Bamboo, the holy grass of Asia, grows indomitable in every patch of land where warmth, humidity and humans allow it to exist. Ever-changing, ever-growing, it shoots up towards the sky at speeds of up to one and a half metres a day.
Fascinated by the resilience and the beauty of this unique grass, I step into the bamboo forest and I look at it from within. I want to be like the wind that shakes these weeds, like the light that filters through revealing infinite shades of green. I walk around searching for that one frame that would allow me to re-present the experience, and I know that I am searching in vain. Looking around from among the bamboo, the eyes never stop. To freeze the view in one single frame would mean to annihilate myself, and the landscape of which I am a part.
The great fallacy of Western art is to present a view of the world through a window and to call that image "the real world"; the viewer is not part of it, he is fixed at some static spot outside the landscape; his eyes still, he is dead. With Chinese scrolls and Japanese folding screens, the viewer embarks on a journey through the landscape. The eyes never stop. Scanning the view and selectively paying attention to detail, the eyes work actively to construct a memory of what is being seen. As with the meaning of dreams, our perception of the world is a re-construction from scattered fragments; it is interpretation and it is an entirely individual experience. To photograph the landscape is to desperately try and overcome this ultimate solitude, the undeniable fact that we are all alone within our minds; but also, together, one with the world.
Fascinated by the resilience and the beauty of this unique grass, I step into the bamboo forest and I look at it from within. I want to be like the wind that shakes these weeds, like the light that filters through revealing infinite shades of green. I walk around searching for that one frame that would allow me to re-present the experience, and I know that I am searching in vain. Looking around from among the bamboo, the eyes never stop. To freeze the view in one single frame would mean to annihilate myself, and the landscape of which I am a part.
The great fallacy of Western art is to present a view of the world through a window and to call that image "the real world"; the viewer is not part of it, he is fixed at some static spot outside the landscape; his eyes still, he is dead. With Chinese scrolls and Japanese folding screens, the viewer embarks on a journey through the landscape. The eyes never stop. Scanning the view and selectively paying attention to detail, the eyes work actively to construct a memory of what is being seen. As with the meaning of dreams, our perception of the world is a re-construction from scattered fragments; it is interpretation and it is an entirely individual experience. To photograph the landscape is to desperately try and overcome this ultimate solitude, the undeniable fact that we are all alone within our minds; but also, together, one with the world.
