GEOGRAPHY OF NOWHERE
Often it takes a seconded glance to grasp the essence of reality that surrounds us, without going too far. It helps to step aside and to start watching again, putting between ourselves and the world the right distance to view it in full, or at least see the single part that tell us much more. The shots of Anne Lass have the rare and precious gift of synthesis, and a power of communication that goes hand in hand with the undeniable aesthetic appeal that they move deep in the observer. The Geography of Nowhere project, undertaken in the United States where the German photographer resided for a couple of years, is a striking example. «In my work», Anne Lass confirms, «I try convert my personal impression of portions of the United States living space into a panopticon of what I like to call absence of self-determination. It is the absence of any reference to the place and the randomness of shown locations that conducts me to the paradox title Geography of Nowhere.» An impeccable formal cleanliness, but also swerves and surprising insights, compete to represent this broad and complex geography of disorientation, to cross together with sharp contrasts and modules withdrawn from the serial production, scraps of urban decay and of its recovery by an invincible nature. «Especially in the urban cityscapes», Anne Lass adds, «I find the conflict areas that influence my images: conflicts of functionalism and individual development, the association with nature, the concourse of construction and vastness and, last but not least, to human interaction.» Elements able to uncover the structure of this ever changing reality, a further underground geography that restless crawls on the bottom, no longer made up of places of living and physical spaces, but of functional arrangements and dynamics of life itself.
Text by Andrea Filippin
© All copyright remains with photographer Anne Lass