© Roei Greenberg, 'Hinterland', from the series 'English Encounters'

Roei in 2018 you moved to the UK and went to study at Royal College of Art, MA Photography. What has been your impact with England?

Roei Greenberg (RG): Yes, The last time we spoke about my work on Urbanautica (conversation with Irith Gubi back in 2017), just before I decided to move from Israel to the UK. For many years I wanted to pursue further education and live outside of Israel, where I lived my all life. The Royal College was a dream of mine for a really long time! Living in London, meeting a diverse range of people and open up to new ideas and opportunities… The fact that my wife is English did help, and the dream finally became a reality. We moved in with my in-laws for a couple of months which turned into a couple of years, this enabled me to fully immerse myself in the studies but as one can imagine was less than ideal for all parties involved.

How recent studies affect your view on photography? How did your practice evolve since then?

RG: With all the excitement of starting the 2 years Master's, I soon had to confront the simple fact that I was far away from my subject matter for many years: the Israeli landscape. I felt I was out of my depth when thinking of the English landscape as a potential subject matter… How could I copy a practice from a place I was very familiar with – its physicality and nuances – and transfer it to a place I know almost nothing about? As an Israeli, I felt it was my duty to address territorial issues while in Israel. What gives me the right to even attempt to do the same as an outsider and what is my position?

Luckily, in the first year at the RCA, you have to complete a written dissertation and although it seemed a bit odd at the time, proved very effective… All the questions I had were directed into the research and I spent most of that year in the library rather than on the road with a camera. So while the work I made back in Israel was evolving somewhat intuitively, here I had to gain knowledge and confidence in order to go back on the road and make work. So to summarise my answer to your question; the recent studies gave me the confidence to take on extensive research and to construct the narrative and ideas in which my practice can exist. It is not so much about the act of making pictures, as much as it is about charging them with context. If that makes sense...?

Back in time when speaking about your Israelian works you told me: "The ability of photography to hide just as much as it can show lead to the emotional duality which runs through my works and sews them together into a complex exploration of narratives." Is that still true?

RG: Certainly, early on in the making of English Encounters, I realised that the strongest images had this dual quality of what I later described as Seduction and Alienation. I believe this duality derived from photography’s association with reality and its perception as documentation - unlike painting. Although the narrative here was more abstract than the more personal connection with the work from Israel, or maybe because of it, this emotional duality is the backbone of the body of work that sews the images together.

© Roei Greenberg, 'Spectre', from the series 'English Encounters'

In 2020 we all faced Covid-19 which has dramatically influenced our lives and projects. How did you react to this situation, and how did you manage to keep your creative production alive?

RG: I really wish I could answer this question with some inspiring insights regarding practice, process and adaptation… In all honesty, I did not handle the situation very well. The abrupt way in which the studies came to an end, not being able to go back on the road for a while, with no studio space or a daily routine, I found it really difficult to maintain a workflow. I am lucky to have a supportive network of friends and family that helped me keep my head above water this past winter and I’m really looking forward now to getting back and confronting my practice again.

In May you will be joining a National Gallery online event in recognition of Constable’s "Life inside The Hay Wain"? What would be your alternative view on this painting? How do you feel about contributing to it with other relevant speakers?

RG: I was thrilled to be invited to take part in the celebration of Constable’s Hay Wain 200 year anniversary! When speaking about my work here in England, the idea of trespassing obviously refers to land rights, but here I am invited by the National Gallery, as an outsider, to trespass, even if just for a glimpse of a moment, into the history of art and romantic ideas.

John Constable - The Hay Wain (1821), National Gallery, London

Constable is arguably the most celebrated of English landscape painters and his most famous work, The Hay Wain, is a very idealistic depiction of the English countryside that even at the time was going through some momentous industrial changes that Constable choose not to include. Everything in this painting shows man in harmony with agricultural activity and references a bucolic idyll. This perception is very interesting to me, as at the end of the day, in any attempt to represent land as landscape what we actually looking at is a subjective encounter with a place.

On an in-conversation with Andy Simpkin you said that "Without the context, the photograph hides just as much as it reveals.". I am curious about your recent series "English Encounters", and what these pristine views, and picturesque "veduta" hide of the landscape?

RG: The picturesque image was traditionally used to create an illusion of social and nature. Harmony, and those pristine views are deeply rooted in the English psyche. However, I soon realised that my outsider position was enforced by the physicality of the English landscape itself. The rural landscape I encountered was divided by fences and hedges, and any attempt to photograph a certain scene depended on whether I could stop the car or find access to an area of interest, an experience of looking which I found very limiting. I was often admonished and constantly felt (and told) that I was trespassing.

© Roei Greenberg, 'A Species of Rich Distance', from the series 'English Encounters'

This was an incredibly frustrating experience, but this sentiment slowly became an important aspect of the work; poetic and alluring yet tinged with irony, the images in English Encounters seek to disrupt traditional modes of representation in a place where land ownership and social hierarchy have shaped the form and perception of the landscape for centuries.

© Roei Greenberg, 'Walk to Paradise Garden', from the series 'English Encounters'

The history of art has shown us the use of allegories and symbolism. Your series depicting bucolic views of the English landscape is sprinkled with objects, and interventions, sometimes visible and sometimes barely perceptible. What do these signs mean?

RG: The first photograph I made in England and which is now included in this body of work is the work titled “Fruitful Encounter”, where banana skin and oranges are placed on a fence. In a spontaneous reaction, while waiting for the sun to return, I playfully placed my breakfast on the fence that was keeping me off the land. Only later on did I realize that this symbolic act of marking, or formally altering the scene, had real potential and this thinking started to become an important aspect of my work within the English landscape.

© Roei Greenberg, 'Fruitful Encounter', from the series 'English Encounters'

From this early intervention, I constantly thought of different ways to mark my presence or point the viewer to the obstacles that kept me out of places. The most extreme example of the interventions and the idea of inserting myself into the landscape is the work tilted “Landscape With Oak Trees and A Hunter” which refers to a painting by Casper David Friedrich with the same title, where I used a round mirror and placed it in a way that reflects myself at the time of capturing the photograph. In Friedrich’s work, I believe the hunter is hidden as he was trying to get rid of the need for the human figure within the depiction of landscape, and for me it was a way to reappear in a new landscape.

Landscape with Oak Trees and a Hunter, 1811, Kunst Museum Winterthur

© Roei Greenberg, 'Landscape with Oak Trees & a Hunte', from the series 'English Encounters'

Tell us about these landscapes you photographed. Where are we? Which regions? Is there a specific reference to places of the English pictorial tradition or are you just inspired by them?

RG: English Encounters started from a real need to become familiar with the geography of the English island, my new home. The idea of walking the land as a way of mapping or marking is related to my background and Zionist upbringing; to walk the land is to know the land, and to know the land suggests belonging, entitlement and even ownership. A colonialist concept: it was an interesting and somewhat ironic reversal when thinking of the history of Israel/Palestine and its borders, which were drawn on a map by the English and the French after the First World War.

© Roei Greenberg, 'Winter Morning', from the series 'English Encounters'

The more ground I covered on my journeys, the less interested I became in a specific place. Images in English Encounters were made all over England; from the South Downs and Kent in the South, Cornwall in the West and the Lake district and Northumberland in the North… But unlike the work from Israel where the places really mattered to me and are always mentioned in the work titles, here I felt the sentiment of the outsider looking in was more important than where a specific image was captured.

© Roei Greenberg, 'Interloper', from the series 'English Encounters'

What did you learn from this journey?

RG: I certainly learned how to drive on the wrong side of the road (: I now have a good knowledge of the geography, which helps to feel more at home. A better understanding of English history and the politics of land, traditions of landscape representation, and how sentimental the perception of the English landscape is… all of which are were super important for me to be able to make work. I am still learning and cannot wait to get back into motion and find out what comes next!

© Roei Greenberg, 'Division', from the series 'English Encounters'

What feedback did you have so far on this special work? How British people and curators react to your "foreign" glance at their favorite landscapes?

RG: To my surprise, It is not just English/British people who react to the work. there is something about the sentiment embedded in the English bucolic ideal and my attempt to challenge it that really seems to resonate with a very diverse range of individuals. The real success of the work I believe, when it comes to addressing its complexity, is in the range of conversations the work itself seems to generate. Many people share the duality regarding the land and its representation and I keep learning from each encounter and feedback.

Installation View at Webber Gallery, London, August 2020

One very special feedback the work had received was from Prof. Andreas Gursky who was invited by the Royal College to curate a selection from the 2020 graduates portfolio: “Roei Greenberg has developed a very idiosyncratic visual language in his work. The landscapes are seductive and almost hypnotizing, drawing the viewer under their spell. But the appearance is too good to be true because one does not trust the conjured harmony and an irony breaks its way in, which reveals the complexity of these pictures.”

Installation View, London Grads Now, Saatchi Gallery, London, September 2020

Roei, anything you wish to add to this exchange?

RG: I would like to thank you Steve for reaching out and having me on board once again. If anyone is still reading to this point then thank you for taking the time! Be great if you could join us at The National Gallery (Zoom) next Friday: May 7th; 6-7.30 pm BST - “Life inside The Hay Wain” - Constable’s landscapes 200 years on... Free registration from here.

I’d also like to recommend a new publication by Inside the Outside, Right to Roam which was made in response to recent changes in law criminalizing trespass. Copies of the journal can be purchased directly from their website here. 

LINKS
Roei Greenberg (website)