Richard Mosse: Infra

28th November 2011

These fascinating images are part of a series called ‘Infra’ by Irish photographer Richard Mosse. They were shot in the Democratic Republic of Congo on a color infrared film called Kodak Aerochrome. Now discontinued, it was once used by the military as surveillance technology to help detect camouflage by registering an invisible spectrum of infrared light, rendering the green landscape in vivid hues of lavender, crimson, and hot pink. Beautiful.

“Infra offers a radical rethinking of how to depict a conflict as complex and intractable as that of the ongoing war in the Congo. The results offer a fevered inflation of the traditional reportage document, underlining the tension between art, fiction, and photojournalism. Infra initiates a dialogue with photography that begins as an intoxicating meditation on a broken documentary genre, but ends as a haunting elegy for a vividly beautiful land touched by unspeakable tragedy.”

Infra is showing from November 17 – December 23.
Jack Shainman Gallery
513 West 20th Street, New York, NY 10011

(via Trendland)