Clare Richardson, Beyond the Forest
In his introduction to Landscape and Memory, the historian, Simon Schama, asserts that, ‘Although we are accustomed to separate nature and human perception into two realms, they are, in fact, indivisible. Before it can ever be a repose for the senses, landscape is the work of the mind. Its scenery is built up as much from strata of memory as from layers of rock.’ This proposition – that our understanding of landscape is dependent on memory, and vice-versa – poses a difficult dilemma to someone who has led a life dominated by transience.
…within Beyond the Forest she employs a somewhat radical strategy to illustrate that fictions exist in what might otherwise be misconstrued as fact. When the images are reproduced, they always bare a faint yellow cast – as if they’ve been fogged or have aged prematurely – which, to someone who has dedicate years to both admiring and slavishly attempting to produce perfect c-prints, appears to be a serious error on the part of the printer. But as the book unfolds, the consistency and ensuing effectiveness of this intentional flaw progressively intensifies. ‘The yellow cast removes the pictures from photography,’ Richardson explains, ‘They become much less real. I wanted the work to look more pictorial, and not like photographs. The first time we descended into the valley it was twilight, there was a heavy fog in the air, there were horses and carts and old dirt paths, and I couldn’t believe that it wasn’t a film set or a Breugel. Also, you can’t help but look at a few haystacks and think of the Old Masters, so maybe there’s a bit of that in there.”
Since its invention, photography has fought a long, embittered battle to distinguish itself from painterly traditions, to be understood as an entirely separate but equally legitimate visual interpretation of the world. As Berger’s reading of Strand points out, this battle was nearly won more than four decades ago. Yet looking at Richardson’s latest work its hard not to suspect that perhaps something incredibly valuable has been lost along the way – an ability to employ myth, imply fantasy and stir the imagination beyond the limits of visual reality. In the book’s subtitle, Richardson tells us that the villagers portrayed in Beyond the Forest claim to descend from the children of Hamelin, Germany, who in the thirteenth century were led out from the town by the Pied Piper, never to be seen again – a fable recorded most famously by the Brothers Grimm. “You see, it’s a real place, but it’s explained through this folkloric tale. Every folktale has a bit of truth within it, but there’s a lot of twisting of that truth through word of mouth, so the surface of the reality changes. Ultimately, I wanted the book to be like that – something that you’d read as a bedtime story.”
Article written by Aaron Schuman, read more here.
