Discovered artifacts in the forest. A photo series about the “camps” (“forts”?) that children build in the woods. We often look at these structures with a patronizing perspective1, which this project explicitly seeks to avoid. Rather, this photo series is intended to interpret these buildings as concretizations of the Vitruvian idea of Primitive Huts2. These findings I encounter during my forays in the forest as well as Vitruv’s concept are archaic architecture. Both share a simple, functional design that meets basic human needs for shelter as well as exploration and thus unfold a pristine beauty of their own.
Note: The places where these huts can be found remain undisclosed. I see myself as a pure “flâneur”, exclusively documenting the places I visit without altering anything about the structures or their surroundings. Accordingly, this ongoing project has a purely documentary/ethnographic character and does not pursue any photo-aesthetic claims whatsoever.
Footnotes
1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adultism
2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Primitive_Hut
to be continued…
Acknowledgement: Thanks to Annette, Henrike, Tom, Evi and Simon for their support in the spot-hunting process.