ABSTRACT

The contemporary landscape is a composite landscape in which culture has developed into a force that counterbalances nature: in the words of Michel Serres, ‘at last, we exist in nature’s scale.’ Nature has become framed by culture, as a conversion has taken place—from civilizing islands in an all-powerful, untouched nature, to fragments of nature surrounded by a cultural condition.

The ‘Anthropocenic Archive’ is an open-ended collection of sites across this cultural condition. It is a photographic narrative ranging in scale from monumental post-tsunami earthworks in Japan to minimal fauna crossings in Denmark, portraying anonymous places such as soil depots, fire ponds and highway basins, alongside landscapes of vast dimensions such as sea walls, mining pits and infrastructural relics.

The archive maps phenomena and conditions which we have created in the Anthropocene, and makes visible how a new landscape is being formed by infrastructure and land works, as we embank our coastlines and erect sea walls to protect ourselves against hyperobjects such as climate changes.