Sander Meisner‘s photographs from “Urban Landscapes” are a part of an ongoing exploration of public spaces, places that he elevates from the mundane to the beautiful. Concrete reminders of a world that is overshadowed by urban sprawl and invasive industrial wastelands in the landscape of our dystopian present. One that’s devoid of the natural world, is the antithesis of beauty, wonder and enchantment.
Yet within this melancholic cityscape Meisner manages to find abstract beauty. His wonderful photographs capturing the light falling against clean geometric forms, the car parks, buildings and walls infused with a quality that reflects our own emotional relationship to the world around us. His ability to create aesthetically beautiful pictures imbued with humanity is what makes these images so striking, makes us stop and reflect on the city and the spaces that we inhabit everyday. It is a portrait of the forgotten. The unwanted, the ignored.
Perhaps we choose to forget these monolithic structures because they are without personality yet Meisner refuses to accept this generality. He sees the wonder in light, in the abstract geometry of an empty carpark, a concrete flyover or an industrial wasteland. He takes us through the city at night, introduces us to everyday places in a new way, he demands our attention and like all good photographers asks that we look closer, demands that we reconsider our relationship with our environment.
Text: Morai Mair