Enclave: Photographs by Richard Mosse (Paperback)

Jason Stearns

ISBN 10: 1597112380 / ISBN 13: 9781597112383

Published by Aperture, New York, 2013

About this Item

Paperback. For the last three years, Richard Mosse has been working in eastern Congo, a region beset by ongoing cycles of conflict and factional violence. His depictions of the region and its inhabit - ants operate within the uneasy interstices of documentation, fiction, and hallucination. The Enclave presents an imaginary spacea conflation of many discrete rebel territories into one fictive, isolated destination; a space in which logic and time have become unhinged. Mosses landscapes and environmental portraits are rendered surreal in part through his use of discontinued military surveillance film, which registers an otherwise invisible spectrum of infrared light in vivid hues of fuchsia and lavender. The images are seductive, alluring. Ultimately, however, they serve to map the otherwise invisible edges of violence, chaos, and uncommunicable horror. The Enclave is also a space in which communities starve despite inhabiting the worlds most fertile and resource-laden landscapes.Within this space, massacre follows massacre; young children are brutalized and forced into military service; friends turn out to be enemies; and women are routinely raped before being slaughtered in front of their families. Eyewitness accounts of these acts, collected and transcribed by Human Rights Watch, are included in the pages of this volume, in stark contrast to the - real landscapes. With this disorienting mix of fact and the fantastical, The Enclave book and the five-screen multimedia installation it accompanies, to be presented at the Venice Biennalehijacks the traditional narratives of war photography and humanitarianism, plunging the viewer directly into the ambiguities that are actively redefining the project of both documentation and geo-political intervention. For the last three years, the author has been working in eastern Congo, a region beset by ongoing cycles of conflict and factional violence. This title presents an imaginary spacea conflation of many discrete rebel territories into one fictive, isolated destination; a space in which logic and time have become unhinged. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.

Seller Inventory # 9781597112383

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Enclave: Photographs by Richard Mosse (Paperback)
• Publisher: Aperture, New York
• Publication Date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1597112380
• ISBN 13: 9781597112383
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: new

About this title

Synopsis

For the last three years, Richard Mosse (born 1980) has photographed in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, a region in which a long-standing power vacuum has resulted in a horrifying cycle of violence. The Enclave is the culmination of Mosse’s recent efforts to radically rethink traditional representations of conflict photography, drawing on artistic and documentary strategies in equal measure. Shooting with both still and 16 mm cameras, he uses a discontinued military surveillance film, which registers an invisible spectrum of infrared light. Mosse has captured the landscape in disorienting psychedelic hues of scarlet, lavender, cobalt and puce, creating images that are deceptively seductive and alluring. Ultimately, however, the resulting images and film map the otherwise invisible edges of violence, chaos and incommunicable horror of isolated, jungle war zones. At the heart of the project, as Mosse states, is his exploration of the contradictions and limits of art’s ability “to represent narratives so painful that they exist beyond language--and photography’s capacity to document specific tragedies and communicate them to the world.” The Enclave has been printed in a total of 1,000 copies, 250 of which have been released as part of a limited-edition boxed set. The boxed set includes a 45 rpm record with sound and music design by Ben Frost; a poster featuring an image by Richard Mosse (depicted at left) and a transcription from the film; and a signed and numbered copy of the book, released to coincide with an installation of the work at the Venice Biennale.

Review

Following up on last year's volume, Infra, Mosse's expose on the Democratic Republic of Congo depicts both war scenes and natural grandeur in rose-colored infrared images. Though the hues are surreal, the realities are sobering indeed. (Jack Crager American Photo)

The resulting photographs...constitute a series that rethinks the tension between a photograph's violent or disturbing content and its aesthetic virtue. (The New Republic)

Richard Mosse’s three years of photography work in the Congo using discontinued infrared film is haunting, surreal and beautiful. (Rebecca Horne Wired)

THE ENCLAVE seeks to heighten the visibility of this conflicted area while contextualizing human suffering in a problematically beautiful visual sphere. (Colleen Kelsey Interview)