Forest
Simon

Invisible Landscapes

“On one hand, the railroad opened up new spaces that were not as easily accessible before; on the other, it did so by destroying space, namely the space between points. That in-between, or travel space, which it was possible to ‘savor’ while using slow, work-intensive [forms of transportation], disappeared on the railroads. The railroad knows only points of departure and destination.” From Wolfgang Schivelbusch’s The Railway Journey.

This project consists of digital photographs of the spaces that lie just to the side of railroad tracks. The invention of the railroad brought with it a redefining of journeys. What was once defined by the distance between points and the terrain that separated them, suddenly became an individual number: the duration that someone had to sit while getting from one place to another. This created a new, reduced, geography. A geography of points separated by invisible landscapes.

By focusing on tableaus adjacent to the railroad, I hope to reintroduce us to the space between points, forgetting temporarily the points of departure and destination. It is important, also, to note that the railroad did not meander peacefully across constructed paths as coaches did, but instead brutally and mechanistically struck through land; its constructors seemingly ambivalent to what was once there. The rail at the bottom of each frame is a reminder of this alteration and the new confines it created.