Project Description

Landscape paintings were once a common feature of interiors.  Now, in the age of digital photography, our personal archives of places we have lived, visited, or passed through number in the thousands.  Given this torrent of images, stored on our phones and computers and in old photo albums, are there possibilities for an individual image of a significant elsewhere to resonate with us in a sustained way?  Out of the thousands of images we possess, are we still capable of fixing our gaze on a singular vista, on a place to return to?

Picturing Elsewhere is a project by Berlin-based artist Benjamin Rubloff that explores the role that memory and photography play in defining a sense of "elsewhere." The artist invites participants to select a photograph that they have taken of an "elsewhere" that is significant to them. This is used as source material for a photo-based painting. The finished paintings are then photographed within the context of the domestic interior of the participants, creating a series that explores the relationship between the domestic interior and the dream-image of an "elsewhere."  For more on the conceptual aspects of the project, click here.

Participation in the project is limited to 12 participants in Germany and 8 in the United States. Participants in other countries are welcome to inquire about inclusion in the project.  Eventually, the project will engage other regions of the world to explore differing cultural and geographical constructions of "elsewhere". The results of the project will be published as a book in 2019.