Reclaimed

Photographer Paul Hart has now concluded his trilogy on The Fens with Reclaimed, published earlier this summer.

The Fens, originally a region of low-lying marshland in the east of England, has been artificially drained over centuries to provide some of Britain’s most fertile agricultural land. It is a landscape of agribusiness with monoculture at its core, defined by human migration and long-term reclamation from the sea.

Paul Hart has photographed the area for over ten years. His narrative examines the complex interrelation between humanity and nature and raises important questions about human-altered topography and our occupation and stewardship of this land. By focusing on the often-overlooked elements in familiar vistas Hart’s aesthetics carry a documentary sensibility that allow the landscapes to define themselves. He works solely with the analogue process employing traditional darkroom practice to convey something of the soulful in a landscape that is rarely considered of aesthetic merit.

I've posted before from both his earlier books, Farmed, and Drained. The same particular bleak English sensibility – backwaters, melancholic mist and grey, landscapes fashioned by people with no people in sight – characterises this latest collection:

Macmillan Way, 2018