Sandra Aplerh Doku

On the 4th of November my photography class and I visited the Joan Fontcuberta exhibition called ‘Stranger Than Fiction’ at the science museum. Joan is an artist whose works is known for leaving a question in everyone’s mind as after seeing his work you will ask yourself if it’s truth and if you can rely on photography as many people think that photography is a fact, what has been photographed has to be true. He uses museums, documentary narratives to combine reality and fiction. His aim is to make them look convincing, to make as believe what we see. He’s work can be very controversial to the quote: “photography is a way to document”, as he documents things that may look real but are not. On the Stranger Than Fiction exhibition, we were able to explore his work from a closer point of view. Karelia Miracles & Co: For this project

Joan wanted to expose miracles as Hoxes and the Monks as Charlatans. To be able to enter in a monastery he posed as a novice monk. When he got in he documented what he thought to be blatant case of fraud. Karelia is a real region in north Europe near Finland and Russia, is not really a place for tourists but it has very nice landscapes and monasteries. Joan stated he took the pictures in this monastery called Valhamonde Monastery where they preform miracles. The truth is that -no one really knows if this Monastery really exists and if they preform these miracles. I personally think this project is very creative and interesting, as as soon as I saw it I asked myself what was it about. Though I could tell this is fiction and not reality, but if I only had the possibility to read the story behind and not seeing the pictures I could have believe it was a real story.

Sirens: This project supposed to be about this fossilised remains of an unknown species. This fossil has the resemblance of a siren. It has been

said that Father Jean Fontana a priest and teacher discovered this fossil. Well, this entire story is a fiction as is not true. But because of the story he wrote about this fossil and the way it looked real, I believed for a

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second that it could be true, even though I don’t believe in mermaid and creatures. But then I remember that he himself stated:

“People who understand that it is a farce and appreciate the satire and the humour of it, to people who understand it's a farce and are angry at you for trying to fool them, to people who believe it and are angry, to people who believe it and are delighted”.

Constellations: This project is about constellations. Everyone looking at the stars at night or images of galaxies and all these heavenly bodies

remains amazed. I was amazed when I saw Joans pictures of the constellation at the exhibition. Even because of the big dimensions of the images, I felt like I could see the universe from a closer point of view. However, I could not forget that the one who took these pictures is Joan Fontcuberta, ‘The master of fiction’. I knew there was something behind these marvellous constellations. In fact, with a little bit of research I found out that these marvellous constellations were not what they looked like. Joan took these pictures by placing a

photographic paper against the window of his car. The asteroids, moon and star that I thought I could see were simply traces of insects, dust and dirt that have gathered there during his journeys between Barcelona and his home. With these pictures he created an illusion of the sky at night.

Orogenesis: This project focus is mainly on mountains. Is about how the artists from the 1700s were fascinated of mountains and they used the power of mountain landscape to evoke the nature of our planet as infinite. Joan pictures of these mountains are really breath-taking, they makes me wonder from which angle did he take them and how could he take such a large and profound landscape. However, Joan did not really took these pictures, he used a topographic computer program that converts map contours into three-dimensional landscape images. He scanned landscape paintings and photographs, and then he used a program to select an alternative viewpoint from the

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digital scan to make a new work from the old. Well, the method he used is really intelligent many people could do that; the difference is that as soon as you see the pictures you wouldn’t believe there’s a whole process behind, anyone would think that’s an instant picture took with a camera. No one before had the idea of doing such a process and then lying about it and making it look like a true photograph.

Herbarium: In this project Joan photographed a series of images, about flowers. Stating they were new plant species, which he also named. He was inspired by the work of the German photographer, Karl Blossfeldt, who searched for artistic pattern and architectural structure in his own photography of plants. As soon as I saw the pictures during the exhibition, I did not really get what was behind all these pictures of flowers, with these strange names which even sounded real; till I understood the secrete behind these

flowers. Joan played with our minds once again. These flowers with these strange names were not what they were. These plants were sculptural objects created by him from plant matter and other materials like electrical wires and textiles. He really did elaborate convincing plants to deceive us.

Fauna: As soon as I saw this project I was wondering what was it all about. These kind of animals or monsters, I couldn’t tell what were they. I saw this strange creature without head. I could tell it wasn’t real from the display, but in the picture, Joan located the strange animals in the right location which made them look real. If I had only seen the image without the animal shown in a display I could have believe it was true. However, this strange creatures are not real Joan created them with the help of the artist and writer Pere Formiguera.

I found interesting the thought of Mark Twain about Fontcuberta’s work, which says:“Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because fiction is obliged to stick to all possibilities; truth isn’t ”.