Presented by AA School of Architecture

Artist Talk: Award-winning Dutch photographer, Bas Princen

Coming to the Architect Association School of Architecture to see a photographer talk about his work, one must ask what is the correlation between photography and Architecture. Ben Princen is a trained architect, but now most of his exhibited works are photographs of landscapes and buildings from all over the world, such as China, Egypt, America, and Europe. His illustrated booklet, Reservoir, contain a series of theses photographs of which coveys the oddity of human ‘civilisations.’

During the talk, Princen displayed on PowerPoint the pictures featured in the book. He was able to tell us the stories behind some of his pictures. This picture below, Mokattam ridge (garbage city) from Cairo has two vanishing points. This is picture is actually two pictures that are fused together to create a story. He noted that every picture tells a story, and the photographer directs the viewer to follow the narrative.

The eye first enters the photo some where in the middle where the flat roofs are seen wholesomely. It then travels around in a circle, up to the white abyss, following the horizon line, and back down to the frontal view avoiding the dark black hole right in the middle of the picture. Light plays a role in directing the eye. The lilted parts are where the eyes forces in on. The dark parts and the white background become the negative space that borders the path that the eyes travel on.

This garbage city juxtaposed to the white background conveys the dramatic difference in social classes in Cairo. Patches of light and darkness through out the picture is similar the current state of Cairo. When I went, my friend would point to one place and say this is one of the nicest parts of Cairo. Then I see very broken down building next to it. All over Cairo, there are districts of wealth adjacent to dodgy areas.

Mokattam ridge (garbage city), Caïro, 65×81 of 125×155 cm,2009

Other photographs in his series follow a certain sequence. The viewers can see more clearly of order of photos at artist talk, where he projects his photography in a certain order or by flipping through his book. A gallery space does not hold the same emphasize to order because the viewer is exposed to the multiple images at the same time. By presenting the photos one by one, the viewers can see the slow transition from one image to another, which is vital to Princen’s work to see the references from old photos.

From these white man-made colonnade, he gives us the following picture. Here he juxtapose two ideas of strength, human’s contraction of beams and nature’s strong earthly material; both supporting one another. It is a striking contrast between organic and geometric shapes, but that is what makes it beautiful.

Princen’s references come from different photos from other photos he took or old photos from books and magazines. Princen said, “I go out to find photographs […] in which the artificial and the natural take each other’s forms and in which one is unable to see if things are being constructed or destroyed. I think that is the most interesting thing that can be said right now about the cities in which we live, and the landscapes in which we dwell (and vice versa).” His interest is the fusion of nature and humanity, and how they work together and live with each other. If nature and humanity can live together so well and ideally, they can dissolve within each other. Like in the top photo, the horizon line from the landscape continues on the gilded building in the middle of the photo. Looking at it for a long period of time, the building begins to disappear. Nature represented by landscape, and buildings represented by building structures, they both sit in harmony within each other, in Princen’s photos.