David von Becker & Leo Pompinon

David von Becker, Leo Pompinon

I feel closer to what is far away and foreign than to what I already know. I don’t derive an agenda from that fact – I mistrust grand agendas – my basis is feeling and curiosity. I like to travel and work without a ready-made setting. I expect the unexpected, ‘the defining moment’. I want the photograph to give shape to a spontaneous experience, and give stability to the moment. David von Becker

Decommissioned mines, abandoned hotels, decaying breweries – as human beings we leave behind signs that will later bear witness to our existence. In the midst of the chaos created by abandonment and economic liquidation, the photographer Leo Pompinon attempts to reconstruct and examine those traces in his images. He lures the spectator into a world of the past and shows the effects of the unending upward spiral of modern globalisation. Whether we take his images as a warning or as a treasure for what remains is left up to each individual. Bettine Abendstein