gaia — The Anh

a photo series exploring my view on humanity’s relationship with Nature

Core Idea: spectating how Nature finds a way to still haunt our urban lives, a constant ubiquitous and ghastly reminder of our origins.
Medium: photography
Outcome: 28 photos with a story woven into them
Year: 2023
Time spent: 1.5 months

Since when were we humans, above Nature
Since when were we humans, above our own mother
Since when were we humans, superior to our creator?
Our DNA prevailed in the game of evolution
We’re here, today, thanks to every generation that came before

Since when did we revere pieces of green paper
Since when did we decide it was best to be a hedonistic consumer
Build a career, get a house, get a spouse.
Oblivious to what’s always been around.

How nature has been almost forgotten, obscured in our day-to-day
Being born in the city, in the concrete jungle is a weird and almost unnatural experience.
This was my attempt to reconnect with Nature, albeit in an urban context.
This was that yearning, that indwelling longing to find my roots again.

It was a dissonant feeling of suffocation
Of seeing metal and plastic surrounding my field of view.
Of how sad it is that I’ve grown so accustomed to and familiar with man-made things
Of a bottle of coke, of a car, of a billboard sign, of a plastic home appliances.
I don’t know how to feel about it actually.
I don’t exactly despise human things.
I just want to find an answer for myself.
Question my field of view of the world around me.
Toy around and entertain different spectrums of thought.

I had no final destination in mind but I had an inner guiding compass.
I started with the green, or more specifically, finding green everywhere I go.
Spectating how Nature finds a way to still haunt our urban lives, a constant ubiquitous ghostly reminder of our origins.

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Below is the entire series, un-annotated, followed below by detailed annotations.

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↓ The entire series, annotated ↓

Bland. Disconnected. This photo is the opener to the whole series.
I wanted to start from a place of lifelessness.
A construction fence a lamp post on top,
against the city’s night sky.
Desolation. Loneliness. Melancholy.
This is what urban life feels like to me.
Artificial.

Here’s a couch, representing how we’ve been SO comfortable in this artificial way of life.
We’re introduced to vegetation now, but they’re barely there. Washed out from the smog and dust of urban cities.
The couch, for me, also meant Reflection. This series is, after all,
an investigation on the relationship between my
Humanness and Nature.

As I ‘sat’ down on that couch, I looked around,
and became even more dissatisfied with what I saw.
I saw colors,
but they were nothing more
than chemically-induced elements.
Neon lights, headlights from passing traffic and screens.

I’m just sick of it at this point.
Something is surging up my larynx.
Sick of the phoniness of it all.
How have I been so blind to this all this time?
I’m born into it, so why am I feeling a pull on my heart strings.
Again, the trees and plants are there, but hardly blossoming or filled with life. They’re merely ornamentative in this context.
Patchwork, quick-fixes to include at least some element of Nature.

Funny how we’re so unfamiliar with darkness when it’s nighttime.
Because we got light bulbs everywhere.
Here I further juxtaposed Nature in an urban setting,
suggesting a subliminal parallel between
the Sun >< Lightbulb; a Tree >< a lamp post.

Life finds a way. Life force is ever-present in the veins of reality.
I love the image of tree roots bursting through hard concrete sidewalks.
It’s ‘concrete’ proof that there are things we should not try to surpress.
Life is fluid, ever-changing and untameable.
An unstoppable motherly energetic presence.

Here, we transition more onto what mankind currently place Nature at.
Landfills, dumps, piles of scrap. We’ve made mountains out of them.
How ironic, that we leveled out majestic mountains and hills.
only to build back-up worse versions of them.
I wanted to strike that feeling of our irresponsibility and carelessness
regarding our impact on the natural environment.

“When did Nature ever become the background, a thing to be
considered in hindsight, and not first and foremost?”
This question was on loop in my mind. I’m just pissed and baffled at it.

“When did Nature become something ‘dirty’, something of a luxury to have?”
Commodified? Neglected?

We’ve done horrid things to Gaia, We’ve tainted something.

Here is where we witness Nature start to take over.
A series of photos displaying this overgrown, abandoned, almost peaceful serenity.
These machines I found were discarded, left for dead.
Nature took it into its loving arms.
Is that thing still man-made or is now Natural?

A slight poke at capitalism and the modern lifestyle.
Is Nature priceless? We seem to have put a price tag on it haha.
Like that saying... when the trees die out and the lands dry up, can we eat money?

Powerful machines capable of terraforming the Earth - again, left to rot.
I toyed with the contrast here.
Hard steel and metal vs. soft, lushful greenery.
The beast is asleep, possibly indefinitely.
Decommissioned.
Are you scared of it still?

We’re sinners to Mother Earth, yes, but Mother is gentle and forgiving,
just like this flower that bloomed right by the jaws of that disarmed beast.
Forgiveness, that’s what this photo meant to me.

So, what do we do now?
How can I both reconnect with Mother and live as a city dweller?
How do I reconcile and amend this situation?

I intentionally used the orange-yellow,
almost piss-colored lighting at night to suggest/foreshadow
a fusion of Man and Nature.

The fusion is painful, visceral to a sense.
Molten.
Climactic.

A deafening silence, as the fusion is complete.
The man-made things are here still.
So is Nature.

Gaia is benevolent and forgiving, and she welcomes us back on the
journey to find our roots.

All this time spent in my head looking out.
Feeling like an observer of this bigger picture.
Now, on behalf Nature and Man, the picture’s looking back at me.

> next: ‘Dấu Chấm Tròn Xanh’ - music video animation
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