PHOTOGRAPHY

Plants: Plantago major (Greater plantain), Senecio inaequidens (South African ragwort), Conzya Canadensis (Canadian horseweed), Linaria vulgaris (Yellow toadflax), Cirsium arvense (Creeping thistle)

On the Edge of Darkness is a row of night-time photographs of urban weeds that are innate to the streets of Amsterdam. Fractured light, which is created with a self-made device, illuminates urban street sceneries of wild growing weeds. Together with the given street lighting, which is frequently a new type of LED lamp, the situations are captured with long-time exposures.

On the Edge of Darkness is based on a fascination for urban weeds. They represent a psychological quality of productive resistance and hope: although they do not fit in the (man made) planning and order of urban spaces, they successfully manage to evolve, claim their ground and magnificently regenerate.

The light interacting with the plants plays another crucial role in the photos. The fractured light effects are not only playing with the grown appearance of the plants, they also suggest a sort of aura, one that refers to the visualization of divine powers, often associated with religious painting like halos or glorioles or other forms of light phenomenon.

The very low ‘down to the ground’ perspective in the photos belongs to botanical photography but it refers to lying on the floor and in the dust. In combination with seeing light on the edge of dark space, these images reiterate a common description of dying.

The series On the Edge of Darkness was made in 2014 and is printed a on dibond (c-prints behind acrylic). The format for a single print is 70 cm x 46 cm. The whole series includes 12 photos.