This is a preliminary note for myself because I would like to explore the Edgelands idea further when the time comes. Edgelands is the title of a new post on the We Are OCA blog by José Navarro, and it is also the title of a price-winning photography book. The concept is about “urban abandonment” – buildings and other civilisatory installations which are abandoned from profit-oriented human use. What happens is that plants and weather conditions lead to a rottening process which has its own beauty.
And there’s lots of this in Berlin, too. While the center areas mostly have been beautified, there are still quite a few of these Edgeland-type areas around. I’m finding this important because having just embarked on Part III, Drawing Outdoors, I have begun searching for nice places to draw. Without thinking about it, I had been guided by my personal romantic idea of intact landscape and have sought out places in and around Berlin which at least moderately fit the idea.
Reading the Edgeland post, I realize what I have been avoiding, or not taken as proper landscape. That is, the course materials actually pointed to the drawings of industrialized landscapes by Lawrence Stephen Lowry. But juggling between various commitments and trying to benefit from good weather conditions, I had made my first excursions for ourdoor drawings before doing the research point. Then studying Lowry, I realized that my idea of landscape drawing was dominated by a search for beauty in nature, avoiding urbanization. For me, there was a border between townscape and landscape.
The Edgeland concepts brings back to mind that urbanization is an interesting drawing topic, and abandoned urbanization even more. Some time ago I wrote about how fascinated I was about the Angkor Temples in Cambodia – abandoned 500 years ago, and the jungle has taken over in the meantime. I like the similarity!
References
We Are OCA: Edgelands
http://www.weareoca.com/photography/edgelands/