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About this series
The title 'A Mountain is Only a Slow Wave' is a quoted phrase from author, psychiatrist, and Vipassana meditator Paul R. Fleischman. In his book ‘Karma & Chaos’ from 1999 he writes:
“The Pali word anicca is translated into English as impermanence or change. (...) Anicca is a word indicator that points to a fact of reality: the ceaseless transformation of all material in the universe. Nothing is solid, permanent, immutable. Every ‘thing’ is really an ‘event.’ Even a stone is a form of river, and a mountain is only a slow wave.”
The images in the body of work ‘A Mountain is Only a Slow Wave’ by Judith Stenneken explore moments of transformation and transition. Stenneken investigates the fact that nothing in this world is permanent, even though certain objects might leave us with the impression that they are. Our experience of the world is challenged as we learn that everything and everyone is part of a continuous process of change.
As we stand before a transforming world today, I wonder how we can perceive change with openness and tenderness. In my observations of change and impermanence, I came across a fascinating fact: within change, we can discover the interconnectedness of the world.
The world is relational. Things can only exist because they connect in ever-new and ever-changing constellations. We are interconnected and interdependent in a world of change.
The collection of still images comprising this body of work has been taken over the span of more than a decade (2008-2021) across a variety of countries. The color portraits were made in collaboration with asylum seekers from Syria and Afghanistan and taken in Berlin’s defunct Tempelhof airport. Stenneken documented the airport’s closure in 2008 and revisited it after it was partially converted into a refugee camp between 2015-2018: a space of transitions housing persons in transition. Many of the interior shots have been taken in the airport as well.
The overall project contains photographs as well as three elaborate video installations. The book will complement these works and, after six years in the making, bring the project to a close.
This project is a multi-year exploration. Tell us more about your process developing this collection. What challenges did you face during all the years?
The most exciting and equally challenging thing about long-form projects for me is to stay open to the many directions they take while I work on them, because it is not only the project that is changing, it’s me who is changing, too. I was 37 years old when I started this project, or actually 29 years if you take into account that part of the project was done back in 2008. I am now 43 years old. Very different people! But that is also what is so fascinating about time and the depth into which a project can develop, if you are willing to give it time. I photographed something in 2008 not knowing that my future self will need it as a building block to make sense of another project. I love that! It’s a bit like being in a Christopher Nolan movie when that happens.
The fact that my projects take years is also just their natural evolution. They develop in their own time and they resist force. Whenever I try, because I get impatient, I fail. Depth requires time and focus, there is no shortcut. I think it’s in part my curiosity about a project's real potential that keeps me going for years. Every project has an innate shape and it is the artist’s job to carve it out; however long that might take. And what an amazing job that is!
Why did you choose to finance it via Kickstarter? Does it give you more freedom in the end on how you want to publish it?
This is my third self-published book and my second Kickstarter. The combination of crowdfunding and self-publishing has changed the art book market in the past decade. These tools have emancipated artists to get their work out in the world. I am a big fan of that. With crowdfunding, your investors are your customers. It is the most immediate way to get your work into the hands of your community. And as a backer, you are an active part of making an idea a reality. Without you, that thing won’t exist. That is powerful.
While I work on an idea creatively I retreat…making a show or making a Kickstarter are ways to introduce the work to an audience for the first time and to be in touch with them about it directly. That is an exciting moment.
You can support the photo book project by Judith Stenneken
by making a Kickstarter contribution here.
What’s the schedule of the printing and where and how it is going to be printed?
If the Kickstarter campaign is successful, we immediately give the printer the go, which means they would be able to print and bind the book in December and January. All in all, backers should receive their signed copy of the book in February of 2023. We are going with UV-Offset printing since the choice of papers and the quality of printing offset is still more convincing than printing digitally. We print with Longo in Bolzano (South Tyrol). They produced my last book ‘Illuminate Naturally in Darkness’ and did a great job. I am looking forward to being back there and working with them on ‘A Mountain is Only a Slow Wave’.
Who are some of the inspirations that fuel your work?
I am inspired by a range of sources including quantum physics, eastern philosophies, mindfulness practice and neuroscience. Connecting these disciplines helps me find grounding in a complex and ever-changing world. A few examples of that are…
Annaka Harris and her book ‘Conscious. A brief guide to the fundamental mysteries of the mind.’ Her investigation of the workings of our minds challenges our perception of the world. I am honored to say that Annaka is one of two authors who contributed their work to ‘A Mountain is Only a Slow Wave’.
Carlo Rovelli, a theoretical physicist and author. He has the extraordinary ability to take a complex topic like quantum physics and make it accessible to the ordinary reader. I recommend reading his book ‘The Order of Time’.
Vilem Flusser, a Brazilian Czech-born philosopher, writer and journalist. His book ‘The Freedom of the Migrant’ is one I return to regularly.
Yuval Harari and Andrea Wulf are my go-to’s when I look for something less dense yet inspiring. I enjoyed reading Wulf’s book on Alexander von Humboldt ‘The Invention of Nature’, for example.
Rev. angel Kyodo Williams is one of my spiritual guides, but not in a religious sense. She is a writer, civil rights activist and ordained Zen priest.
The latest podcast I listened to and liked a lot was between Brian Eno and James Bridle, regarding Bridle’s latest publication ‘On Ways Of Being’.
Alan Watts…I am currently re-reading his book ‘The Book’.
My weekly go-to's are Maria Popova’s newsletter ‘The Marginalian’ and Krista Tippett’s podcast ‘On Being’.
What these different thinkers have in common is their perception of a changing, yet (or rather because of it) interconnected world. They express in words what I hope to do with images.
Artist Bio
Judith Stenneken is an award-winning German visual artist working in photography, video installations & photo books. She studied photography at Ostkreuzschule in Berlin (2006-2009) and holds a Master of Fine Arts in Photography, Video and Related Media from the School of Visual Arts in New York (2013). She is represented by Marshall Gallery in Los Angeles. Judith is currently based in Berlin.
Photographer: Judith Stenneken
Instagram: @ju.sten
Kickstarter: A Mountain is Only a Slow Wave
Photos copyright Judith Stenneken
DRAWLIGHTS | 1/1 – one post/one photographer, weekly. Off-chain and on-chain. By Peter Nitsch, lens-based artist, a member of Jenny Metaverse and lifetime Member of the Royal Photographic Society of Thailand.