Body Landscape
A project done in collaboration with Eugeni Prieto, a photographic series that forms a dialogue between his body images and my landscape photographs.
Landscape's body
"None of your knowledge, your reading, your connections will be of any use here: two legs suffice, and big eyes to see with" -- Frédéric Gros, A Philosophy of Walking
Landscape photography, for me, is an inseparable activity from walking in the mountains. More than going out to photograph the landscape, I go out to walk accompanied by a camera. And it's the act of walking that transforms how I see the landscape, ceasing to be a beautiful and static image that is comfortably observed from afar.
Walking for long periods, whole days if we are fortunate and have the time, intimately connects us to the place where we are.
Our body becomes present at the same time that the landscape takes on a concreteness and materiality, the depth that time gives it, and the effort we put into walking there.
Body and Earth resonate together, the landscape is no longer just an image we see there solely for aesthetic and visual enjoyment, but it becomes a lived environment.
Distances and elevations cease to be abstract measures, and the body becomes our guide, each step and each breath our own measure, as we follow the path that climbs the mountain.
In some way, walking brings reality to the landscape, bringing it closer to the body and making us pass through it. The effort, the breath, all the physical sensations invite us to an intimate relationship with the landscape, while pleasure takes root in the body.
This earthly intimacy transfigures the landscape, showing us a whole set of characteristics and singularities, recognizable physical features as well as bodily traits.
As if the earth were winking at us, in the same way that it awakens our body, nature reveals a corporeality that calls to us and seduces us.
Pau Guerrero
Exhibitions
Project's website