Soissons #5, (2006), Soissons #6, (2006)
Photograph 75 x 144 cm Courtesy: Galerie Polaris, París
These images are taken from a series of photos by Eric Aupol of a glass recycling centre in Picardie (France). Waste seems to be an inevitable consequence of industry and consumerism and the vast accumulations of waste materials deposited in certain places give rise to “new” landscapes open to a spectrum of interpretations ranging from the sublime to fully- fledged protest. Aupol addresses this reality in his work in a complex fashion as examines the relationship between landscape, materiality and time. Uncovering a telling equivalence between geological formations (sediments, strata, hills, valleys) and these “mountains” of waste, we can visualise the materiality of the landscape in a different time scale: as opposed to the slowness of geological time we see an accelerated industrial time in which the evolution and decay of materials create strata with a weak and transitory memory. Accumulation and decomposition are the new authentic defining elements of these new industrial landscapes or nature. The images in this series are conceived with a conscious backward nod to the classic parameters of the landscape genre, further reinforcing a certain idea of mutation and gradual metamorphosis of the landscape.
