ABOUT ME

Shaped by the long summer vacations of my childhood and youth, which were spent almost exclusively by the sea, in the primitively beautiful yet distinctly human-formed landscapes of Ireland or Brittany, I decided to deepen my connection to the sea through the study of oceanography. With the help of physics, I gradually understood more and more about the nature of the sea. It brought order to chaos, but I failed in my goal of becoming closer to the sea; it was disenchanted and lost its mystical essence for me.

As a child, I started taking photographs, and since then, photography has been another way for me to approach nature and try to capture its essence. I have retained my fascination with the interaction of light, atmosphere, and landscape to this day. It continually amazes me how this interplay can transform a scene at the right moments and, with the right composition, bring order to the chaos of nature.

We live in the Anthropocene, where humans have become a geological force that shapes and changes landscapes. Influenced by the school of “anthroposcenes” in contemporary British photography, and with my knowledge as a natural scientist and my perspective as a photographer, I engage with these changes. I try to work with both contrasting elements—humans and their objects as disturbances of nature—and harmonious aspects, where anthropogenic influences bring calm and softness to nature, with humans acting as curators of the landscape. When I succeed in this, unique perspectives on the contemporary cultural landscape of Northwestern Switzerland, my new home, emerge.

Laufenburg, 2024 – Felix Morsdorf