Downpatrick Head, Dun Briste. Jan Kempenaers.

Downpatrick Head, Dun Briste. Jan Kempenaers (Belgium).

Photographs by Jan Kempenaers
Design by Roger Willems

Published by Roma Publications in collabortion with the Academy of Fine Arts Ghent, 2012. Edition of 500, signed and numbered. Contains an original colour lambda print.

[Purchase: Photo-eye]

Belgium-based photographer Jan Kempenaers is known for his large-scale and detailed landscapes. In his series he explores contemporary relevance of picturesque tradition. He is interested in today’s hybrid landscape: natural landscapes altered by humankind. His earlier books are Spomenik on monuments of former Yugoslavia and Picturesque on abandonedconstructions and ruins within the natural landscape. A recent book presents landscape in its natural state. A filmic sequence of photographs of a massive rock is printed on a cardboard leporello (an accordion fold). With leporello binding each page in the book lays flat. A beautiful colour print is a nice addition to this exceptional book.

This massive rock, known as Dun Briste (means “broken fort”), is located at Downpatrick Head, Ireland. It is about 80 meters offshore and apr. 800 years old. Dun Briste was formerly joined to the mainland and there are several stories in folklore as to how the sea-stack came to be cut off from the mainland.