Between Worlds
Between Worlds asks the question if we can still feel one with nature in our current day and age. I got a chance to meet people who are learning to live in the wild again. They have to navigate this new way of existence and find themselves in a balancing act between our human made world and the one we came from.
The project started as a documentary, but during the research phase it evolved into a broader visual exploration, consisting of film stills, writings and drawings reflecting on this attempt to reintegrate into nature.
Longing for a life I’ve never lived
In a place I never was before
Through a newly born death
Life got itself meaning
A rhythm of new grounds
Once we all knew
Many of us are missing the connection with nature. But some people choose to change their life and start living off the grid, with as little technology as possible to distract them from this primal feeling. They don't have a utopian feeling about the future and feel increasingly alienated in the technological society they are trying to move away from.
Their goal is not necessary to develop survival skills, or to go completely off grid for the rest of their life, but it is about staying in nature for as long as possible, without any modern tools such as flashlights or modern knives. It is about reconnecting with nature as a human being, by only using what nature provides. In doing so, they reject the comforts of modernity.
During the moments I spent with this group, both in Sweden and in The Netherlands, I experienced how the simple tasks to stay alive, such as finding food and shelter, turned to be a source of meaning. The same activities our society treats with disregard as it finds ways to outsource them, were valued again as they became part of the ritual of life.
With this project I explored their reintegration into nature. But this is not just a romantic ideal of living in harmony with the natural world. At the same time these images show how nature holds both life and death, and that living in balance with it does not mean a life of comfort. On the contrary, balance means accepting the difficult side of nature as well. Our society has never been too good at that. I believe it is important we start to realise the value of these experiences, which always have been held out of sight. We don’t like to be confronted with death or even with the origins of our products, yet by not knowing this we miss the chance of building a real relationship with our surroundings.
During a campfire conversation someone expressed this balance in a beautiful way:
‘It is by knowing death that I learned the value of life’