Amidst The Fire, I Am Not Burnt – Surface Reading
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Dates2020 - 2024
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Author
- Topics Landscape, Contemporary Issues, Nature & Environment, Documentary, Photobooks
- Locations Naples, San Sebastiano al Vesuvio, Ercolano, Portici, Torre del Greco, Torre Annunziata, Boscoreale, Trecase, Boscotrecase, San Giuseppe, Ottaviano, Somma Vesuviana, Sant'Anastasia
A documentary approach of the iconic landscape shaped by Vesuvius. It researches the different temporalities, scientific and popular approaches, historic and present-day photographic representations, and stories inscribed in this cyclical landscape.
In April 1872, Vesuvius erupted in a violent cataclysm. It is considered to be the first volcanic eruption ever photographed. Major eruptions have followed since, with the next eruption dangerously looming. Each eruption leads to the next cataclysm, each period of quietude to forgetfulness and complacency.
Amidst the fire, I am not burnt interweaves documentary writing and photography in a constellation of subjects ranging from the historic and present-day observatories, breadcrust bombs, a parking lot inside the mountain, Neapolitan outskirts, superstitious residents, derelict quarries, antennas, chunks of volcanic rock, souvenirs, a muon detector, marble plaques, twelve students who perished near the crater, vegetation, archaeological sites, government workers standing around a bonfire, and lovers parked along the nightly road leading up the volcano. As each eruption adds a layer on top of the last, Vesuvius senses, stores, destroys, shapes and transmits information.
Amidst the fire, I am not burnt uses documentary photography as a research perspective into a landscape that is documentary in its own right. As each eruption adds a layer upon a previous one, the documentary possibilities of photography seem limited to what’s visible at the surface. Amidst the fire, I am not burnt departs from the properties classically attributed to documentary photography – its said potential to approach a subject ‘in depth’, to ‘uncover’, to lay bare a ‘hidden and deeper truth’ – and opens new and radical possibilities. In considering the literal and figural surface as ground for documentary, Amidst the fire, I am not burnt appears as series of photographic and textual documents embedded in a speculative, narrative constellation.
Amidst the fire, I am not burnt
Michiel De Cleene & Arnout De Cleene
2024
Roma Publications 462
162 pages, 24 cm x 30,5 cm, softcover
ISBN 9789464460520
Amidst the fire, I am not burnt is part of Documenting Objects, a research project at KASK & Conservatorium, School of Arts Gent.
