Lit Forest

c-print on Duratrans, dimensions variable

These photographs were taken in an autumn night in the beech forest on Učka. Coming into the woods in a remote area, me with my camera, I made an intervention in nature, and in order to get the photo in the night, I used the flash of the camera. Making use of flash disrupts the night's peace, the trees and life in the forest. These photos of the lighted trees, which actually shows the flash of light on its crust, I put in three specially made ​​wooden boxes made of two types of photosensitive wood. The reason for this is as follows: Both the wood come from tropical areas, one from Africa which is brown-red, and one from South America which is dark-purple. From the trees are made three massive boxes in whose interior is laid electric lighting and the photographs of trees from Učka. I insisted on the massiveness of the boxes to show that in this project the same importance given to the tree in the photograph and the wooden frame that in some sense behaves the same as the photo. The wood of the boxes is photosensitive, it reacts to light so that changes color in a very short time by getting darker, and if you do not protect it at some time with a fixative, it decays rapidly. We also know that the image is essentially the most sensitive thing in the light of the intervention, and to photograph what is actually necessary is light for its emergence in fact we need to protect fixator to protect it from further deterioration, and the light that it is actually created.

In a work related to “Učka,” I made photos of the bukva forest, singling out small lines of light to focus on. The photographs were placed in thick, solid lightbox frames of African wood, the same deep red as the trees in my photographs. I made the frames so massive because I wanted them to have the same presence as the photographs; and like the photographs, the wood itself is light-sensitive. These rich bright colors are the natural colors of the wood, not enhanced by any paint, but the light that lets us see their color makes them gradually fade. It is the same when I stand in the forest lighting up the trees; the light from my flashlight or my camera implies the human presence that will destroy the forest just as this foreign wood is destroyed by the sun.