© Gleb Simonov from the series "Old Growth"

Tell us about the project “Old Growth” selected for the Urbanautica Institute Awards? What is the motivation and the theme you addressed?

Glev Simonov (GS): The American myth of the dark forest is largely an inherited European narrative, formed in a different age, culture, and, most importantly, a different ecosystem. Yet this myth is still projected onto the modern young, often unsustainable monoculture forests that are largely results of reforestation, their histories openly visible in the land: one can identify plow terraces, lack of pillows and deadfall, uneven numbers of older and younger trees — all pointing either to agriculture, pasture land, or clear cuts. What then is a ‘true’ forest? “Old Growth” came to be a study of coastal redwoods, known as some of the few places of virgin forest in the continental United States. In equal measure, it focuses on the redwood ecosystem, and the pathfinding within the forest — trails, elevated platforms, service roads, signage — all the different levels of intervention created to manage the forest and accommodate the visitors. It is also, to some degree, a study of sacred groves and the similarities between protected forest land and traditional temples — this side of the project explored in a separate series of poems, still somewhat of a work in progress.

© Gleb Simonov from the series "Old Growth"

© Gleb Simonov from the series "Old Growth"

© Gleb Simonov from the series "Old Growth"

What are the practical difficulties you faced in its development?

GS: The production of “Old Growth” was spontaneous and surprising because I have never before been able to shoot anything good in any forest, despite many efforts. The redwood forest was different, something about its density and growth patterns allowing, for a lack of a better word, composition — which in turn makes one wonder about the relationship between land portrayability and usage. It also allowed for continuity: staying on site dawn to dusk, one day after another, coming back to the same spots, getting to spend time. Places are slow, it helps to slow down with them. So anyway, half the film still didn’t come out, but when does it ever.

© Gleb Simonov from the series "Old Growth"

How does this work fit in your identity statement as a photographer and if relates any with your previous works?

GS: This is my only series that is unintentionally dedicated to an endangered species. I often think about Humboldt’s “Kosmos”, and how what allowed the wholeness of nature to be depicted was the same thing that pushed so much of it into extinction — and I have to wonder how far the notion applies.

How did it all start? What are your memories of your first shots? How did it evolve from the early days?

GS: I am a poet first, and photographer second. I work with landscape: trying to approach places as found entities — beings, rather than constructs, holding their own agency in the world. Something we meet unexpectedly and on terms we are not entirely clear on. The approach is impersonal and restrained, and often arises from friction between theory and the intimate experience of being out in the land. In terms of form — it seeks out a multitude of things whose interconnections are often entirely obscure. In terms of tone — it is a sense of clarity and a certain indebtedness to it — while also suggesting it comes not from photography but the place itself, the images simply point it out. In that sense, my role is that of an intermediary, not even between the land and the viewer, but rather the land and film.

© Gleb Simonov from the series "Old Growth"

© Gleb Simonov from the series "Old Growth"

What are the themes that interest you, what generally attracts your observation?

GS: The land is always brimming with context: geomorphology, biocenosis, a history of land ownership, logistics, depiction in the arts, safety, and so on — and since it can only ever be seen from the inside, the view is inherently incomplete. The unifying theme, I guess, is the ontology of a place, how it exists in the world.

From a methodological point of view, what is your approach to the medium? How do you envision or conceptualize the projects?

GS: I work in the form of either short or long series, often focusing on a specific ecoregion and what defines it: the Arctic tundra, the deserts, the coastal barrens, the floodplains. It’s never just ‘nature’, which itself is a problematic term — over the years, some series ended up wholly lyrical, some wholly historial, some focusing on the anthropogenic, the altered — and there is always an elusive sense of space defining itself, tying it all together.

© Gleb Simonov from the series "Old Growth"

Do you privilege any camera or process in particular? 

GS: I always have one camera and one lens, typically a midrange. For years it was a Mamiya RB67, which eventually died in the Arctic. Henceforth I switched to Mamiya 7.

Does research play any significant role in your practice and project development?

GS: Research comes down to a question of episteme, as it provides the contextual setup for the massive amount of data on land history and usage, accumulating from several distinct scientific fields — but landscape is something walked, a direct negotiation with the terrain. It can get you lost. Some series are planned, and involve a lot of location scouting and at least some sense of context; others emerge unexpectedly out of a number of individual shots. Research may or may not come, at some point. The whole sense of the lyrical is that it hints at something actual, yet not subject to the explanatory means.

© Gleb Simonov from the series "Old Growth"

© Gleb Simonov from the series "Old Growth"

© Gleb Simonov from the series "Old Growth"

Any interesting books that you recommend and that recently inspired you and why?

I really don’t seem to read about photography at all. Instead, it’s poetry, art history and primary historical sources, theory of landscape, geology and botany. For “Old Growth” specifically, the major inspirations were probably Glacken’s “Traces on the Rhodian shore” and “Real Spaces” by David Summers.

How important it is to showcase your work. What about exhibitions or other forms? Any tips or experience to share?

GS: A fostering social dynamic of publishing and exhibition is determined by risk: judgements of consequence, whether they come from curators, critics, or other artists. How much the present state of affairs resembles this is an open question. Personally, I stick to magazines and traditional publishing.

Who or what does influence your work in particular? Is there any contemporary artist, photographer or writer you’d like to quote or mention?

GS: There’s a whole pack of past artists I constantly think about: Patinir, Chinese landscape painters of various periods (Li Zhaodao, Xia Gui, Ni Zan, Dong Qichang), abstract expressionists (Joan Mitchell, Per Kirkeby and Cy Twombly), the second generation of Düsseldorf photographers, and so on. Not to mention the non-artists: archival photography, like the Historic American Landscapes Survey, has, in the past century, developed its own aesthetics, with little need for social contexts to back it up. The connection between all these is very questionable, of course. If I were to name some contemporaries that influence my thinking on landscape in general, it would be among poets — J. H. Prynne, Arkadii Dragomoshchenko, and my direct peers.


© Gleb Simonov from the series "Old Growth"

Gled Simonov (website)
Winner Urbanautica Institute Awards 2021