this must be the place

  • Dates
    2015 - Ongoing
  • Author
  • Topics Contemporary Issues, Fine Art, Landscape
  • Location Switzerland, Switzerland

this must be the place (2015)

The body of work ‚this must be the place‘ is a personal research, exploration, perception and interpretation of landscape and natural spaces. Since I’ve never lived and worked in one place for more than several months in a row over the past years, I had been asking myself questions about everybody’s need of a home, belonging somewhere and the state of being unsettled in a convential way at the same time.

A thread in the weave (Paola Paleari, Rome 2015)

Artistic creation has always fluctuated between two opposite representative „temptations“: the symbolic interpretation on one side and the naturalistic depiction on the other. Like a pendulum that beats time in the human soul, these two trends have directed, alternately, the artistic production over the centuries - almost as if, when facing the beauty of the world, man cannot help but wonder whether it is a prerogative of matter or spirit. In this endless battle, a fundamental question about the nature of reality remains unexpressed. What do we actually see when we look at things?

An old Italian way of saying tells that the quality of a handmade embroidery is to be evaluated from the backside of the fabric, normally hidden from view: if it is excellently crafted, it will look like a lacework, too. As it often happens, traditional wisdom provides us a simple answer, which entails a different way of truly observing what we are looking at. Real beauty is never obvious. To see beyond the obvious is equal to meditate. In my very first encounter with Bärbel Praun’s photographs, I right away thought they could be considered as pure acts of meditation. My impression was that there is nothing superfluous in her images - no aesthetic complacency, no seek for meaning nor message - and the more I have progressed in knowing her work, the more I have confirmed the initial feeling. Photography is for Bärbel a slow apprenticeship in the art of deeply observing reality as it presents itself in the current moment. Could it be a stone, a feather, a hand or a pile of snow: anything is worth a careful gaze, because nothing will last forever.

Her photographic practice is similar to a walk in the mountains, where she actually loves to be: an action where the breath sets the pace and the senses become more alert and alive. I imagine her while she wanders alone, watching and listening what she encounters along the path without

thinking about anything else; and I guess she shoots in the same way, without expressing any judgement, without haste, but simply trusting the precision of the internal alignment between body and mind that we all possess by nature, but that asks to be activated and trained to lead to a full state of consciousness.

For this reason, her pictures can be seen as fragments of a bigger whole: just as in meditation the subject acknowledges her sensations and feelings without becoming identified with them, in Praun’s photography a single image doesn’t represent an end in itself, but rather contributes to the embroidery’s design like a thread in the weave. And that’s also why, as the book’s title says, each place is the right place: nothing can be wrong when humbly engaging with the here and now.

Latest Projects

Sign up to our weekly newsletter

Stay in the loop


We will send you weekly news on contemporary photography. You can change your mind at any time. We will treat your data with respect. For more information please visit our privacy policy. By ticking here, you agree that we may process your information in accordance with them. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.