Ingrid Weyland

I have traveled from the south of Argentina to Greenland's ice sheet in search of landscapes with a particular mood and beauty, unspoiled landscapes, almost surreal. They appear to be places that have never been inhabited, solitary, where immensity reveals itself, and where I have lived experiences of intimate connection with this timeless and placeless nature.

In the series "Topographies of Fragility," I alter, and perform violent gestures, with my own hands, on a landscape chosen among my archive of images from my travels. The resultant crumpled image is then laid on top of the same untouched vista and rephotographed, inciting the observer to reflect on ideas of the natural world as something disposable, to be discarded. This operation on the printed photographic paper allows me to reflect on the permanent and irreversible traces of my actions, in a poetic allusion to our relationship with our planet.

My current work is not meant to be documentation about specific environmental issues of the photographed spaces, but rather a metaphor of the fragility of nature, as well as of human fragility itself, and my intention is to incite in the viewer a sense of self-reflection, to raise awareness and make my small contribution, so that we humans can begin to think of a world in harmony with nature and understand that we are part of an alliance, nature, and humans, together.

It is said that a crumpled piece of paper can never regain its original shape; the trace persists. In the same way, nature which is disrespectfully invaded is forever broken, and many times unrecoverable.

Topographies of Fragility V

Topographies of Fragility II

Topographies of Fragility IV

Topographies of Fragility VI

Topographies of Fragility XXI

Topographies of Fragility XXVI

Topographies of Fragility XXIII

Topographies of Fragility XXIV

Topographies of Fragility IX

Topographies of Fragility XXII

Topographies of Fragility V

Topographies of Fragility II

Topographies of Fragility IV

Topographies of Fragility VI

Topographies of Fragility XXI

Topographies of Fragility XXVI

Topographies of Fragility XXIII

Topographies of Fragility XXIV

Topographies of Fragility IX

Topographies of Fragility XXII