Misha de Ridder
Wissen Brünnen, from the series "ABENDSONNE"
2009
Courtesy Juliètte Jongma Gallery
Series statement
ABENDSONNE was published in 2011 by Schaden.com as an artists book. Sometimes natural phenomena can become so estranged and mysterious, that we are inclined to describe them as unreal realities. It might be the extraordinary shape of a tree, a mountain, a shadow, a cloud or the mirroring reflection of nature in a lake, but it is foremost the unfamiliarity of the natural aesthetics of reality. The photos in this book literally refer to such an unfamiliar natural phenomenon, a phenomenon that appears twice a year during the end of the autumn and the beginning of spring for the period of one week in an area in the Swiss Alps. During the winter season a village is permanently covered by the shadow of a high mountain in the west, which eliminates all direct sunlight. A week before darkness falls, the sun appears one more time after it has set every evening. A mysterious phenomenon known as 'Abendsonne'.