Artist
Aindreas Scholz
Aindreas Scholz (b. 1981) grew up in a bilingual home, dividing his time between Ireland and Germany. He studied photography at the Technological University Dublin, followed by a postgraduate study at Goldsmiths College, London, where he deepened his understanding of critical and contemporary art-making theories and practices. Scholz subsequently trained as a teacher at the Institute of Education, University College London, developing specialist subject-specific skills for teaching art and photography to young people. Scholz’s artmaking focuses on environments affected by human activity, encompassing landscapes transformed by war, pollution, and the climate crisis. He experiments with alternative and sustainable photographic processes, to highlight the need to critically reflect on our daily carbon footprint. Scholz’s work has been exhibited in a range of institutions in Dublin, London, Brussels, Cologne, and Vienna.
Website: aindreasscholz.com
Instagram: aindreasscholz
Soil Matters
The technique of soil chromatography is traditionally used in agriculture to assess the quality of topsoils including carbon content and nutrients. Scholz has been experimenting with soil chromatography using collected soil samples and photographic components, such as coating filter paper in the dark with silver nitrate. Chromas with darker and more complex patterns and colours represent more ‘organic’ soils, which sandy and nutrient-poor soils lack. Once fully developed, the resulting chromas strongly resemble growth rings, a sort of photographic record that visually restores what was once perhaps lost such as ancient trees and soil minerals.
We Are Making a New World
The cyanotypes of We Are Making a New World refer to the story of King Canute and the waves. In the story, Canute demonstrates to his court that he has no control over the incoming tide, explaining that his secular powers are in vain compared to the forces of higher powers. Similarly, it remains uncertain if our current efforts in securing our shores from ever higher reaching seawaters will be effective or if we must face — like King Canute — the inevitable: nature’s powerful revenge.
The emerging climate crisis is strongly echoed in Scholz's work as the methodology relies on the use of seawater and soil to evoke place-specific coastal and environmental vulnerability and highlights the urgent need to develop alternatives to reduce our global carbon footprint. Referencing the writings of Heinrich Böll and his polysemic concept of Erde (earth, Earth, or soil), We Are Making A New World incorporates ‘soil’ as part of a sustainable photographic printing practice, simultaneously evoking the gradual threat that coastal erosions pose.
Seasick
Exploring the social, psychological, and ecological impact of plastic waste led Scholz to conceive his ongoing project Seasick. During beach clean-ups he collects marine plastic debris, recording and documenting his findings using cyanotype – a sustainable 19th century photographic printing process that produces dark-blue prints. The process allows Scholz to use a low-tech method of mass reproduction with a low environmental impact.
Using only sunlight and seawater to develop the prints allowed Scholz to produce a series of blueprints in which a range of white and ghostly absences seemingly float in a cobalt-blue sea. Through these ‘blueprints’, Scholz aims to hold the viewer’s attention and to help raise questions by inviting us to reflect on our global footprint and to think about the ‘blueprints’ that we, as a species, will leave behind.
Using traditional and sustainable photographic printing techniques, Aindreas Scholz highlights issues of the climate crisis, focusing particularly on the effects of human activity. In The Vanishing Point, for instance, Scholz addresses plants that risk vanishing from extinction by experimenting with unfixed lumen prints. His practice is informed by historical and legendary texts and tales, and by referring to these narratives, he weaves engaging storytelling into visually enticing pieces.
Recent graduate Emilia Rigaud presents her ongoing work Fluid. Her at times ghostly and otherworldly creations serve as a sensitive visual account of her investigation into ‘hydrofeminism’ and our connection to water. Alluding to environmental concerns, Rigaud underlines that caring for water is caring for us. Her visual style presents work that occupies a dimension between the seemingly mythical, editorial, and at times documentary traditions too.
Making work inspired by highly personal circumstances, Phelim Hoey and Ryan Allen both address experiences relating to multiple sclerosis (MS), albeit adopting different approaches. Phelim Hoey – whom PhotoIreland has followed excitedly since his nomination to its triennial talent programme in 2019 – investigates the condition from direct experience, utilising multidisciplinary methods to expose the precariousness and unpredictability of his own body, reclaiming control and confidence over himself in the process.
Ryan Allen, meanwhile, is a new graduate, selected for PhotoIreland’s 2022 RADAR Graduate Residency. There is a lot of potential and determination in Allen’s work, and we feel he represents a movement towards the personal with a compassionate and empathetic tone. In his selected project, FathoM, Allen provides a visual response to his fears over the body’s transience, having witnessed the process of MS in his mother.
Also on the path of care, Niamh Barry is a photographer engaging with queer communities in Ireland through her personal projects in a warm and tender manner. We were first introduced to Barry’s work through No Queer Apologies – a project tinged with gentleness while also calling for solidarity and action – and it immediately captivated our attention. Her latest project, brought to FUTURES, Now and Forever, Interpersonally Queer, presents tender images which highlight the chosen families that are so important within the queer community.