Olaf Otto Becker: Reading the Landscape - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 3775738541 ISBN 13: 9783775738545

Publisher: Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2014

Synopsis

In the first, breathtakingly beautiful photographs of his Habitat series, Olaf Otto Becker (* 1959) presents us with idyllic dreamlike places, paradisiacal tableaus from the jungles of Malaysia and Indonesia. Roman­tic floodplains, tree trunks slung with liana vines, eco­logical niches for countless life forms―these are the kinds of untouched tropical rainforests that we pic­ture in our dreams. Even the temperate rainforest of Redwood National Parks in California seems reassur­ingly intact. The mammoth trees are surviving thanks to rigorous conservation measures. In contrast, in the second half of his series Becker painfully shows us what happens throughout the globe when interna­tionally operating companies clear large tracts of land and giant areas of barren, treeless terrain result. Erosion also does its work, and no life can survive in these places. In the final section Becker presents the artificial “forests” conceived by various international architects to insert greenery into urban space. Is this our vision of the future?

About this title

Product Description:

In his "Habitat" series, Olaf Otto Becker (born 1959) presents idyllic dreamlike places-paradisical tableaus from the jungles of Malaysia and Indonesia. (Romantic floodplains, tree trunks slung with liana vines, niches for countless life forms-these are the untouched tropical rainforests of legend.) Even the temperate rainforest of Redwood National Parks in California seems reassuringly intact: the mammoth trees are surviving thanks to rigorous conservation measures. By contrast, in the second half of his series Becker shows what happens across the globe when international corporations clear large tracts of land and giant areas of barren, treeless terrain result. Erosion also does its work, and no life can survive in these places. In the final section, Becker presents the artificial "forests" conceived by various international architects to insert greenery into urban space.

Review:

Beauty, tragedy, and farce: in a new project, photographer Otto Olaf Becker examines the complex relationship between mankind and the environment.--Miss Rosen "Huck "

About this edition

• Publisher: Hatje Cantz Verlag
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 3775738541
• ISBN 13: 9783775738545
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 160