Under the title "On Land", the MdbK is showing the most recent group of works by the renowned photo artist Hans-Christian Schink (*1961 Erfurt). The subject of the work is the landscape in the far northeast of Germany, which the photographer sheds light on from different perspectives in three different sub-projects. From a pictorial point of view, "On Land" is a multi-layered, contemporary engagement with the influential tradition of European and North American landscape depictions – especially from Romanticism. At the same time, the work stands at the interface of current social debates on changes to the landscape in the wake of climate and structural change, the loss of biodiversity associated with those changes, and the effects of these processes on humans’ experience of nature.
While, over the past 20 years, his projects have taken him to the most remote corners of the earth, for several years now Hans-Christian Schink has been focusing on his immediate living environment in the Mecklenburg Lake Plateau. This region – shaped by the last ice age – is very sparsely populated and has in recent years been marked by the increasingly industrialized agriculture. In addition to his intensive photographic exploration of the landscape, his most recent work is characterized by an interest, inspired by natural history, in the flora and fauna as well as an engagement with the history of the landscape (both in terms of its geology and its use by humans). The artist was guided by two basic questions: What defines this landscape? And how can we capture its character, not only photographically but also with the help of other forms of expression?
Two of the three sub-projects of Über Land (Hinterland and Unter Wasser) have already been published in book form by Hartmann Books. On the occasion of the exhibition opening, the third sub-project, Am Weg, will likewise appear with Hartmann Books. At the MdbK, the three parts will be exhibited together comprehensively for the first time.
