The Manhattan landscape: skyline, skyscrapers, concrete, sidewalks, highways, busy waterways, tenements, planned parks...
And after seeing Matt Jensen's photographs: moss covered rocks, old growth forest, rural decrepitude, and unplanned winding footpaths.
Check them out here AND vote by telling us whether you think these photos are believable or unbelievable. But just remember that no matter what you think... they were taken in Manhattan.
Manhattan always seemed to me the greatest artifact of modern human design--an island of dense ingenuity where even the green spaces are a finishing layer of planning and building atop previous structures and habitations. A collection of photographs by Matt Jensen opening this Thursday in midtown challenges the completeness of this assumption. Matt, a consummate wanderer, has found unexpected kinds of landscapes in Manhattan, places he's called Nowhere that are flipped from the usual Manhattan paradigm. Here Nature is dense and our interventions into it are fragile, organic and fleeting. The photos are both a powerful reminder of the relationship between people and nature as well as an amazing demonstration of the ability of the camera to re-frame the way in which we see familiar spaces.
The opening this Thursday is part one of the ongoing project. In part two, Matt plans to print the photos on donated build-boards and construction scaffolding in Manhattan, essentially placing the images of nowhere somewhere.
Nowhere in Manhattan opens this Thursday from 6 to 9 PM at Chashama gallery in midtown.
112 West 44th Street, New York, NY
The show will run August 13th through August 22nd.
For further information on Matt Jensen and Nowhere in Manhattan see:
www.NowhereInManhattan.org
www.Jensen-Projects.com