Land Loss

MAX MIECHOWSKI

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Max Miechowski’s Land Loss follows the artist’s deep interest in the British landscape, exploring themes of time, community and resilience. These absorbing portraits, landscapes and delicate details are captured with Miechowski’s characteristic sensitivity, presenting a quiet space of contemplation. In the work, natural cycles and geological erosion act as gentle and sometimes abrupt reminders of loss and impermanence. As Miechowski learns by observing this seaside community, “we too are as temporary as the cliffs”. At a time of social and ecological upheaval, Land Loss reconnects us to the environment, and creates an extended metaphor where great uncertainty, compassion and care is carried by the landscape. Recalling his experience of visiting, photographing and witnessing this changing community, Miechowski writes:

“I expected to find storms, rough seas, ruined houses falling into the waves—a sense of urgency from the people living on the edge of a landscape, where entire towns have been lost to the North Sea—instead, the land felt still, the waters were calm, and time moved slowly.

Coastal Path, Skipsea, Yorkshire.

Families have lived on the cliffs for generations, never expecting the sea to finally reach their door; others had just moved there, fixing up a place that they knew would soon disappear. ‘It was worth it’, they’d say, ‘to see the sunrise and hear the birds and the waves. If only for a few more years.’

There is something hypnotic about this place—rhythms seem to stand outside of human time. The thought unsettles me, yet, I can understand why, despite all the precariousness, people would want to make a home here, between the land and sky, to watch as the sea edges closer.” – Max Miechowski

Max Miechowski, Photo London 2022

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Land Loss won Nikon Emerging Photographer of the Year Award
Photo London, 2022, Portraits from the series were also shortlisted for the Taylor Wessing Prize, 2022

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