Abode of Vacancy

Landscapes. Images of architecture. Constructed pictures. Tanja Deman’s video presents a rhythmic succession of sequences showing landscapes and buildings, cut cleanly from one to another. The eye is led over a barren stone desert, then over a wide lake, wanders through abandoned buildings, goes from architecture to nature. The locations are always deserted. The pictures show the coasts of the Netherlands and southern Croatia, the cities of Rotterdam, Zagreb and Split.

Every sequence is constructed symmetrically but avoids rigidity. Movement, in Abode of Vacancy, comes from the vertical or horizontal camerawork, but even more from the movements of nature: gentle waves on water, treetops swaying in the wind, mists drifting past, and also from a shadow in a hallway, visible only after a while. The images displayed are montages, amalgamations of landscape and architecture. Surreal, cinematic moments and spaces are the result, bringing the constructed and natural environments together as an “Abode of Vacancy”. (Anna Christine Kampe)