ELEMENTS
ELEMENTS
CREDITS
Human beings often consider themselves superior to other animals, able to control their instincts and impulses, but in Elements, Russian photographer Anna Block (1982) reminds the viewer that no matter how civilised, untamed forces of nature still reside inside them. Block pursues the notion of ‘nature’, not in the physical or organic, but in following her senses, depicting what she calls “inner dormant volcanoes and subterranean waters”. Black and white portraits of nude bodies are interspersed with the black-blue wing of a magpie, a pure white snake and dark, rugged caves, conveying emotion from desire to pain, anger and fear. Block emphasises our inevitable death, aware that we are decaying at every passing moment, but that it does not dampen our human instinct, noting that in life, “the great circle of transformation knows no end.”
