Archipelago New York

Winner honorable mention at International Tokyo Photo Award 2016 I live on an island surrounded by islands. When I moved to New York it took some time to understand the importance of living on land detached from land and encompassed by water. The islander’s view is from the island out onto the water, but the only way to recognize living on an island is leaving the island and looking toward the land from afar. Leaving and approaching the city by sailboat, looking for and capturing a new perspective became a personal journey in search of a sense of place and identity. New images of an iconic city surfaced. Land- and seascapes are merging, sometimes reducing the skyline of New York to a mere fata morgana and allowing me to capture visuals that lay beyond the idiosyncratic images that have defined the city. Only a few miles away from Manhattan I created images referencing early 19th century painters like William Turner. Juxtaposing those to the imagery of the modern city becomes the spine of the visual story telling of my photographic series “Archipelago New York”. The 15 images of this series are the core of the photographic logbook of a 3000 nautical mile expedition by sailboat into the vast island world surrounding New York City. Following Adrian Block the first European who in 1614 sailed and mapped this magical and mysterious island world, the book’s 15 chapters unravel the mysteries and secrets of these hidden places in plain sight. 162 pages, 60 photographs and 16 double page spreads offer viewpoints from the water, rather than looking out onto the water from land. Maps provide an anchor of orientation for the viewers while they immerse themselves in the stories weaving together history and current themes like climate change, rising sea levels and the exploitation of the worldwide oceans - all wrapped in the narrative of sailing in quest of a sense of place.