AIR: Mark Rammers, All over again, Chapter 1: beginnings
Series of pictures by Mark Rammers, our first Artist in Residence (January, February 2022). From end of April on, an exhibition will take place at Hektor. Buy the art.
All over again
Some estimates say that we reach the point of no return for our environment by 2035. Meanwhile, global superpowers are looking to bring the first humans to Mars, which could sustain human life and therefore is ready for colonization, according to experts. So instead of curing this planet we go to the next and do it all over again. And who are 'we' anyway? There are over 8 billion people on earth, and the majority never comes close to traveling to another country, let alone planet. Only those who can either afford it or prove they are of indispensable value may get a chance to go. I pose the question to the 'lucky ones': You now have the opportunity to do it all over again, will you do anything different?
This question has been on my mind for years. I feel a deep sense of regret for a number of choices I've made in life, some of which I cannot undo or alter. Even if I would escape to a distant planet, these feelings wouldn't just disappear, but follow me like a second shadow.
On Lanzarote, one of the Canary Islands, large volcanoes line the horizon, their surface a blend of reds, browns and blacks. Saharan dust is transported across the Atlantic on the warm winds known as calima. I came to Lanzarote because it looks like Mars and to start coming to terms with the decisions I made in my past. All over again examines the crossroads of our physical world and the one we inhabit in our minds, and what it means when we enter the future before dealing with our past.
Beginnings
Beginnings marks our arrival on a new planet. Quivering, we take a step into a world unknown. We've made preparations, but everything remains uncertain. There is no way back, we can only go forward. Simultaneously these images represent my first attempts in unfolding where my deep rooted sense of regret comes from. My journey is charged with obscure thoughts and clouded memories. But every small discovery provides a bit of understanding and carries in it a little hope for progress.
I, perhaps naively, imagined I would find many answers in one month on the island. It turns out, I found only one: Answers come by asking the right questions, and each answer is a phase in the process, a chapter on its own. Beginnings is the first chapter in a series that will follow the process of comprehending the origins of my regrets. At the same time the work aims to unravel the ethical dilemmas of starting somewhere new when we already fail miserably in taking care of what we have. The images in this chapter will all be hand printed in the darkroom, to emphasize how things slowly reveal themselves when you embrace the process.
