URBAN JUNGLE

Merel Bem

 

Is it a horse? No, there is something funny with that nose, that does not look like the nose of a horse. What is it? The gallery owner helps me: it is a tapir. His blurry head fills almost the entire image, which reflects the crazy muzzle flash. It's like being on the verge of kissing the beast, so up close was the black-and-white photo taken.

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The one who took that photo was Aram Tanis. He presents his latest photographic installation Urban Jungle. Over the last years Tanis traveled to Asia where, without becoming clear at which location the photographs were taken, he captured urban daily life. And in a way he didn't. In these cities with her millions of citizens he constantly looked for places and situations where people were absent. That is, his pictures, show us human traces in the form of high-rise buildings, the swarming of electricity wires and dirty sidewalks. But the people seem to be wiped from the earth, like the first day after a catastrophe.

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Only the animals are there. The tapir. Two peacocks, captured from so close that you almost squint when you look at them. A dog without head or tail, which falls outside the scope of the picture. A white parrot on a stick fills almost the entire image, like the bald corpse of a plucked duck. The combination of these animals and the desolation of the city almost hits you in the face, while the series also contains beautiful individual images.

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Urban Jungle is the result of a thorough empirical investigation into how the urban environment is being experienced. It is great how Tanis managed to turn his investigations into an installation that the viewer can actually feel. At that moment the photographer is in complete control.