Maga Esberg
Maga Esberg is a visual artist exploring the connectedness of living beings and things within and with the woods
Maga Esberg is a visual artist and curator based in the UK. She has an MA in Photography from the Royal College of Art and her work has been exhibited widely. She writes below:
My creative practice explores primarily, within an aesthetic and poetic approach, the connectedness of living beings and things within and with the woods. It is based on making observations of traces, marks or gestures occurring naturally or made by humans, using photography, video, and audio recordings. These are then transformed into narratives, metaphorical objects or experiences aiming to re-frame the perception of the woods.
WOODS/ star.
The pinhole images depict the course of the woods around the sun; sometimes a tree appears like a ghost in a cloud of green smoke; at other times the sun alone repeatedly crosses the horizon and curves: each line, broken or unbroken, representing a day. The lumen series made by contact printing branches, leaves, and grasses onto sheets of photosensitive paper appear to have been drawn by nature itself.
WOODS/ falling
As an artist, I have had privileged access to this space and over time I have ventured into its more remote parts walking by myself following my intuition, a map or just the path ahead.
Walking in the woods is fundamentally a means to observe and collect visual material. It also helps me define the woods on a human scale: I can measure its space in relation to my body which dictates the time spent there and in return, these physical limits shape the work I make. Rather than finding this a hindrance, I have let it become a key element of my work.
WOODS/ falling explores the effects of the wind on the woods. The series of photographs contrasts majestic trees with subtle and intriguing marks; branches caught between earth and flight. This temporary escape from gravity: random, graceful and gratuitous recalls Simone Weil’s musings on ‘Metaxu: Every separation is a link’.
