2024/25 – Digital 4K – (Mix Media Photography) / Ostkreuzschule
The disappearance of living species is accelerating at the rate of the various industrial revolutions. There is an urgent need to slow down, if only to grasp the current catastrophe. Two centuries ago, the aim was to discover new species. In present time, we record the ongoing and future extinctions. Whether threatened or witnessed, how are the remaining beings affected by this profound mutation? And what imaginaries could we build in response to the fragility of ecosystems in the Anthropocene?
Vincent Jondeau’s project poetically explores this reflection by confronting his own vision of the plant world with the botanical drawings made by his ancestor at the end of the 19th century. Through portrayals of plants encountered in his daily life in North Berlin and preserved in his family archive, he probes an era where the question of survival has overtaken that of progress..
Each photograph is accompanied by a brief text, adding a documentary, intimate, and poetic dimension to the images. Whether narrating the singular fate of the plants encountered, sharing personal reflections, or providing historical and botanical commentary, these texts deepen the exploration of ecological vulnerability. The vertical formats in this series are printed on paper chosen to closely match the texture and size of historical botanical drawings, humbly placing the artist in the footsteps of his ancestor — just as a seed may germinate years, or even centuries, after the plant that bore it. The horizontal formats are shown as hybrid forms between film and photography: two silent pieces displayed on small monitors, and a third projected onto a white surface, accompanied by a musical composition by Atlas Glaas, built around the gradual exhaustion of a melody. Through subtle variations in light, these three-channel installations explore dynamics of survival and extinction.
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Single-Channel Video on Monitor, 2025
Loop, 4K, B/W
Silent
Single-Channel Video on Monitor, 2025
Loop, 4K, B/W
Silent
Single-Channel Video Projection, 2024
3:48min, 4K, B/W
Music: Atlas Glaas
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Single-Channel Video on Monitor, 2024
Loop, 4K, B/W & Color
Sound
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— 2024 |Projektraum Bethanien (Berlin/DE) • Group exhibition “Wir werden sehen” 29.05-02.06