Badlands 2008-2011 — Corinne Silva

C-type photographs, 127cm x 101cm and 101cm x 81cm. Selection of the series shown here.

In Corinne Silva’s Badlands (2008–2011) the photographic event is not centred on the depiction of human action but, rather, the traces of its effect which can be detected in the borderland territories located at the edges of Europe. The Badlands series documents two forms of architecture constructed by the denizens inhabiting the frontier spaces of Almería in southeast Spain. The first is the strange landscaped environs … that decorate the luxury housing settlements of the region. The second is the improvised dwellings that irregular migrants fashion from the discarded refuse of agricultural polytunnels.

Silva analyses the points of overlap between these two parallel worlds that seem to deny each other’s existence. Informed by anthropological studies of transnational migration and the critical urbanism of architects like Teddy Cruz, Silva’s expanded practice of photography foregrounds the collisions between natural and artificial ecologies that result from large-scale agricultural and property development.

In Badlands, materials such as plastic point to the physical and symbolic malleability of the Almerían landscape. At once a product and metaphor of waste (both of natural resources and human life) plastic reveals the contradictory effects of globalisation in southern Spain. If the manicured golf courses, gated communities and Western movie sets express the dream images of a capitalist utopia, the tomato farms and the associated shanties housing irregular migrants from northern and sub- Saharan Africa, represent the underside of that fantasy and perhaps even its unravelling.

Extract from ‘Landscape Photography’s ‘New Humanism’ , Chad Elias, Photography Reframed, New Visions in Contemporary Photographic Culture, eds. Ben Burbridge and Annebella Pollen, 2018

Badlands, installation view, Uneven Development, two person show with Jason Larkin, Brighton University Gallery, Brighton Photo Biennial 2012, Agents of Change: Photography and the Politics of Space.

Plastic mountain II, plastic recycling plant (c-type print, 101 x 81 cm)

Plastic Mountain III, plastic recycling plant (c-type print, 101 x 81 cm)

Plastic mountain I, plastic recycling plant (c-type print, 101 x 81 cm)

Castle I (c-type print, 101 x 81 cm)

Castle VI (c-type print, 101 x 81 cm)

Castle VIII (c-type print, 101 x 81 cm)

Desert oasis II, empty lot (c-type print, 127 x 101 cm)

Desert oasis IV, empty lot (c-type print, 127 x 101 cm)

Desert oasis I, empty lot (c-type print, 127 x 101 cm)

Shaded settlement III (c-type print, 101 x 81 cm)

Shaded Settlement V (c-type print, 101 x 81 cm)

Shaded settlement I (c-type print, 101 x 81 cm)

Badlands, installation view, Uneven Development, two person show with Jason Larkin, Brighton University Gallery, Brighton Photo Biennial 2012, Agents of Change: Photography and the Politics of Space.Installation view, Uneven Development, two person show with Jason Larkin, Brighton University Gallery, Brighton Photo Biennial 2012 Agents of Change: Photography and the Politics of Space. Photograph by Nigel Green

Plastic mountain II, plastic recycling plant (c-type print, 101 x 81 cm)Plastic mountain II, plastic recycling plant (c-type print, 101 x 81 cm)

Plastic Mountain III, plastic recycling plant (c-type print, 101 x 81 cm)Plastic Mountain III, plastic recycling plant (c-type print, 101 x 81 cm)

Plastic mountain I, plastic recycling plant (c-type print, 101 x 81 cm)

Castle I (c-type print, 101 x 81 cm) Castle I (c-type print, 101 x 81 cm)

Castle VI (c-type print, 101 x 81 cm)Castle VI (c-type print, 101 x 81 cm)

Castle VIII (c-type print, 101 x 81 cm)Castle VIII (c-type print, 101 x 81 cm)

Desert oasis II, empty lot (c-type print, 127 x 101 cm)Desert oasis II, empty lot (c-type print, 127 x 101 cm)

Desert oasis IV, empty lot (c-type print, 127 x 101 cm)Desert oasis IV, empty lot (c-type print, 127 x 101 cm)

Desert oasis I, empty lot (c-type print, 127 x 101 cm)Desert oasis I, empty lot (c-type print, 127 x 101 cm)

Shaded settlement III (c-type print, 101 x 81 cm)Shaded settlement III (c-type print, 101 x 81 cm)

Shaded Settlement V (c-type print, 101 x 81 cm)Shaded Settlement V (c-type print, 101 x 81 cm)

Shaded settlement I (c-type print, 101 x 81 cm) Shaded settlement I (c-type print, 101 x 81 cm)

info

prev / next

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

· · · · · · · · · · · · ·