synopsis
Max Miechowski’s Land Loss follows the artist’s deep interest in the British landscape, exploring themes of time, community and resilience. These absorbing portraits, landscapes and delicate details are captured with Miechowski’s characteristic sensitivity, presenting a quiet space of contemplation. In the work, natural cycles and geological erosion act as gentle and sometimes abrupt reminders of loss and impermanence. As Miechowski learns by observing this seaside community, “we too are as temporary as the cliffs”. At a time of social and ecological upheaval, Land Loss reconnects us to the environment, and creates an extended metaphor where great uncertainty, compassion and care is carried by the landscape. Recalling his experience of visiting, photographing and witnessing this changing community.
“The British east coast is the fastest eroding coastline in Europe. Landslides and rising sea levels are eating away at the soft foundations on which life here has been built. I expected to find storms, rough seas, ruined houses falling into the waves. A sense of urgency from people living on the edge of a landscape where whole towns have been lost to the North Sea. Instead, the land seemed still, the waters were calm, and time moved slowly. Every time I return, however, something has changed. Cracks creep into the roads that once led to villages, flowers sprout where houses once stood. I know that before long this place will be nothing, but it seems impossible to imagine.
Families have lived on the cliffs for generations, never expecting the sea to finally reach their doorstep. Others have just moved in, renovating a place they knew would soon disappear. It was worth it, they said, to see the sunrise and hear the birds and the waves. If only for a few more years. There is something hypnotic about this place – the rhythms seem to lie outside of human time. We are as transient as the cliffs. The thought unsettles me, but I can understand why, despite all the precarity, people would want to settle here, between land and sky, and watch the sea come closer."
technical information
publisher : Witty Books
2023
96 pages
dimensions : 24 x 30 cm
2023
96 pages
dimensions : 24 x 30 cm
about Max Miechowski
Max Miechowski (born 1989) is a British photographer based in London. He began his creative journey as a musician before discovering his interest in photography at the age of 25. Although he travels extensively to take photographs, he remains deeply inspired by the complexity of the British landscape and his place in it. In his long-term projects, Miechowski explores the delicate and sometimes conflicted relationships between people and the place they live in. His long-term, film-based method offers a meditation on the themes of time, community and impermanence.
book in my collection
publisher : Witty Books
2024 (2nd edition)
500 copies
2024 (2nd edition)
500 copies