Witho Worms - Arena
Witho Worms photographed slagheaps in Belgium, France, Germany, Poland, and Wales.
These black mountains are the visual remnants of the coalmines, and in Europe the symbol of an era that began with the Industrial Revolution. Nowadays, Worms believes that you can view them as burial mounds of an all but bankrupt capitalist system. Taking some coal from each mountain he photographed, Worms turned it into a pigment which he used to print the negatives. The different tints of brown and black illustrate the specific composition of the natural resources used. Thereby melting object and subject, the mountain and the photograph, into a single image of the socio-political reality of the past hundred years.
