NUMEN

Numen is a series of photography, video, installation- and land art. The intention of the work is to simulate and interact with natural phenomena revered by our early ancestors: the nascent foundations of religious belief systems.

Photography represents physics that transcend our normal understanding of reality. Solid materials are rendered translucent and blurred; spans of time are merged into singular moments. When paired with the infinite possibilities of post-production, the photograph itself becomes an extended space for the imagination – a “supraspace”. In Numen, alignments and installations are made within photographic space and its special connection to the natural world. This space becomes a metaphorical spirit world where explicit portrayals of the supernatural are projected by the myth-making imagination onto the reality-presenting photograph. These moments of connection are designed to remind us of our primordial and animistic experience of Nature.

If the conclusion of the Anthropocene casts humankind into the desert – the ultimate terminal landscape – will our collective unconsciousness retain fragments of our past beliefs? In a society receding from religious traditions and reverence for Nature; is it possible to rebuild a framework where photography functions as a reverential art practice, akin to cave paintings and megalithic structures?

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numen : a spiritual force or influence often identified with a natural object, phenomenon, or place