How do we perceive the landscape?
Scenic pictures call to mind grand mountain views, waterfalls, or sunsets. Counter to this association, I decided to put myself in the photograph and collaborate with the land. After all, I thought, doing or land-marking demands more focus than observing.
Craving a change of scenery when movement was restricted to 10km proved an opportunity in disguise, as I had to take matters into my own hands. The camera was brought out on walks to common green areas along with an array of useful household objects. Rather than separating myself from the view, this time my presence was made obvious through the playful interventions I created. Part escapism, part creative expression, part outdoor activity, the images released frustrations by way of complete focus and sensitivity to the land. Through play, misuse, and the relocation of everyday items, the encountered landscapes were transformed beyond the space-time continuum of reality.
The familiar action of throwing a rock into water and watching concentric ripples appear in its stead, is interrupted by a foreign object. Paradoxically, the object (hula hoop) does not threaten the landscape. The scene appears both in and out of harmony, absurd. Such images can be tricky to read but hinder automatic perception and allow for new connections. In Magic Hour, uneventful places serve as a stage for play on which mundane objects perform. Much like at the end of a magic performance, nothing is left at the scene. Captured exclusively for the camera, the images hover in a state of limbo; between real and imagined, purpose and futility, control and coincidence. Literal and metaphorical lenses compose a spatial experience of land and mind; the magic hour revealed. Although from afar my photographs might seem like familiar landscape pictures, a closer look reveals a different perspective. My aim was to challenge perception by allowing room for wonder or, borrowing from the German, Spielraum. In a step out of reality, through the photograph, an opportunity was created for alternative readings and experiences of familiar subject matter. Rather than adding knowledge and conforming to traditions of landscape photography, with Magic Hour I invite you to enter a process of un-looking and a celebration of everyday landscapes.
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Iryna Baklan (b. 1995) is an award-winning Swiss photographer based in Ireland. Her experiential practice explores ideas of landscape, play, and perception within the everyday. Bending the genres (landscape/performance/installation) and understanding of both medium and subject matter, Baklan’s photographs invite us to reconsider our habits of seeing. Iryna Baklan is a graduate of Griffith College Dublin (BA Photographic Media) and Belfast School of Art (MFA Photography).
Web: www.irynabaklan.com
Instagram: www.instagram.com/iryna.evergreen/
Prints: magichourprints.bigcartel.com/products
Magazine: www.agora-collective.com/agora-magazine-issue-1
