In 2017, I started the project The importance of wandering. This project is inspired by topographical panoramic photography from the late 19th century and the etchings of the 17th-century Dutch artist Hercules Seegers.
Within the project, I created - not without humour - landscapes in which there are virtually no people, but their presence is sometimes visible in the waste they have left behind. Since the rise of industrialization, we have exploited, depleted, and seriously damaged nature. And we continue to do so every day, against our better judgment. But what would the world look like without humans, if we as a species were to become extinct? Nature will survive us, I have no doubt about that, but will we survive?
With The importance of wandering, I wanted to reflect on a feeling of powerless frustration about the political unwillingness to take the drastic environmental measures that are necessary. In the social system in which we live, the economic interests of business and industry are placed above the health interests of citizens and above the well-being of nature.
In addition, with this project I also wanted to explore the mental boundaries between “wandering” and “getting lost”, which I see as conditions for being able to rethink existing ideas and thus arrive at new insights.
The Importance of Wandering is a fictional journey in which hope and comfort alternate. It is a journey without a goal or destination.
The landscape has always had a dual meaning for me: it attracts and repels. You can wander around in it and be free, but you can also get lost and lose yourself. Nothing is as lonely and yet as inviting. In a mountain landscape, every peak and every valley holds a new promise, but once you get there, there are new peaks and valleys that beckon.
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For years I saw the mountains in the distance, on an ever diffuse horizon. I had always vaguely wondered what might be there, but never before had I felt the urge to really explore it. I had once seen the top of the highest mountain in a museum. Someone had climbed that mountain, chopped off the top and then sold it to the museum … now it lay there in a display case, like a holy relic.
I asked three friends to come with me, I said, "Shall we go to the mountains to reach the top?" They thought that was a great plan, because they had also seen the mountains in the distance for years, but had never been there. Ambitious as we were, we immediately set ourselves the target of the highest peak, that's where we wanted to go!
In my restless search for the right path, however, I was overcome with doubt … because every time I approached a mountain peak, other peaks seemed higher to me and then I proposed to change course. As we approached that other mountain top the same thing happened to me again. So, I kept looking around nervously and hesitantly and indecisively ... and that's how I lost my friends. There was a disagreement between us about which route to take and we decided to part ways. Later I saw them walking in the distance. Apparently, they had found the right path, because they were now far ahead of me. I shouted, "Wait for me!", but they didn't hear it ... or didn't want to hear it.
At one point I noticed that I had lost all sense of direction. Everything around me was similar and interchangeable and I didn't know where I was or which way to go. At night I slept where possible, in a cave or under the shelter of an overhanging rock.
We had left on a Sunday at the end of May, the weather was beautiful then, but I can't remember what day or month it is now ... I only know the difference between day and night.
When I finally reached a high mountain peak, after long searching and wandering, I was disappointed. Was this it? Was this what I had been looking for? There was nothing there. A big bare nothing. Nothing but snow and rock. Not a single plant or blade of moss or other life ... not even birds. The only sounds I heard were the ones I made myself, my heartbeat and my breathing and the sound of my footsteps in the snow, and above that the continuous sound of the wind ... but beneath these sounds there was an intensely deep silence. A silence of the kind I had never experienced before and it suddenly made me feel completely redundant and insignificant.
about The importance of wandering
2017/22
project
Luuk Wilmering