The Third Day
2010-2011According to the Bible, on the Third Day God divided the land from the sea and let dry land appear so that grass, shrubs and trees brought forth fruit. According to Henrik Spohler’s photographic narrative about the Third Day, man adapts growth and proliferation to his needs, transforming them into an industrial process. He irrigates deserts, drives the growth of fruit and vegetables behind fences under plastic. Finally, with the help of genetic engineering, he alters creation itself so as make the cultivation of plants even more profitable. In »The Third Day«, the photographs taken in California, Spain, the Netherlands and Germany also document the consequences of the Sixth Day of Creation, when man is encouraged to subdue the earth: tomatoes, heads of salad, even cactuses in rank and file in huge monocultures; like spaceships just landed, artificially lit around the clock greenhouses glow in the twilight. Even the division of day from night has long since been suspended – in order that conditions like in Paradise might prevail at local vegetables stores the whole year through.
Hatje Cantz, 2013, ISBN 978-3-7757-3610-7
Texte: Christiane Stahl and Friedemann Schmoll (English/German)
Design: Valentin Maeder
96 Pages, 55 colour plates, hardcover, 30,5 x 25,8 cm
hatjecantz.de