Artist
Laura Van Severen
Strata
When we talk about waste, we are used to the story skipping from A to Z, from PET bottle to fleece sweater or from mixed waste to a blind spot. However, in the process of fast progress we now have an array of materials at hand which the earth cannot take back or which chemistry cannot efficiently transform. Landfill has become the hiding place of the waste we cannot systematically digest.
For many decades (and in some countries up until now), landfill has been the most common and cheap method to get rid of waste. When a landfill site reaches its maximum capacity, it’s covered with protective layers, soil and plants to integrate this newly constructed landscape in the surrounding area. The artificial and the natural collide in vertically stacked layers.
In this deliberate act of concealing, the confrontation with the true accumulation of waste has been lost. There is no visible connection between our consumerist habits and its impact on the landscape. No reminder, no image lingering in the back of our heads that withholds us from the next short-lived purchase.
Following the Council Directive 1999/31/EC implemented in 1999, the EU has established that the landfilling of municipal waste has to be gradually limited to 10% by 2035. This practice should become a marginal phenomenon giving priority to the new waste hierarchy otherwise referred to as the 3 R’s: reducing, reusing and recycling. However, the hills and holes resulting from years of landfill will, identifiable or not, shape the landscape for good.
“Strata” is the result of an encounter with the open wound of an inefficient system. Before the waste is concealed and sealed into an eternal time bubble, the photographs give a glimpse of landfill’s inside structure, portrayed against the backdrop of several EU countries who face highly divergent challenges in minimising this practice due to their different geographical, demographical and political contexts.
The curatorial team of the 8th Triennale has selected five emerging Futures artists in the field of photography who have particularly caught their eye:
What is Hien Hoang’s recipe? For me, it’s the mix of ingredients: Using still-life photography, surrealism and performance, she addresses clichés and prejudices about Asia. Her photos are bursting with exotic beauty, but a closer look reveals abysses that shake up ways of seeing and thinking. (nominated by Stephanie Bunk)
Engaging flows of history and social relation, Euridice Kala deploys the photographic image as a central means of meaning-making. Her artistic practice mines the fraught memories of the Atlantic slave trade and colonial-era Mozambique through the form of installations, performances, and publications. She is invested in the capacity of the archive to generate conceptual possibilities, and pursues these avenues from a Black feminist African perspective. (nominated by Oluremi C. Onabanjo)
Marco Kesseler is a UK-based British photographer with an interest in portrai- ture and the social stories of food security and agricultural infrastructures. Kesseler has a profoundly tender presence as a photographer. From his quiet portraits of daily life in Belarus in the run up the 2015 presidential election to his recent series on the role of seasonal work in the UK largely fulfilled by migrant workers whose labour is likely to be unprotected by Brexit legislation, the quiet resolve of Kesseler’s photographs resist dominant narratives of place, nationhood and nativist independence. (nominated by Gabriella Beckhurst)
Johanna Terhechte is exceptionally curious about the world and driven to undertake challenges. She is a thoughtful artist and a compassionate human being, two underrated character traits in artists. (nominated by Rasha Salti)
Laura Van Severen is a Belgian photographer based between Barcelona and Ghent. She is a promising talent who has, in her latest projects, taken a thorough look at the transformation of landscape and environment. Strata (2020) is an investigation of the effect of landfill and waste management, having traveled to Spain, Belgium, Romania, Portugal and the Netherlands. In this series, Laura maps a representative selection of altered ecosystems that are the pure consequence of our abusive system of consumption. With aesthetic sensibility, she blends artistic and journalistic approaches, pointing at harsh realities of our times with poetic means. With this nomination, I’d like to reinforce her courage working on complex, research-based photographic projects, as well as supporting her persistent aspiration to reconnect us with nature and with each other through diverse exhibition formats. (nominated by Cale Garrido)
