Residence of Impermanence is a series of photographs by Norwegian artist Christian Houge. The series has been exhibited in several museums dedicated to photography: Preus Museum (Horten, Norway, 2019), Fotografiska Museum (Stockholm, Sweden, 2019), California Museum of Photography (Los Angeles, USA, 2020).
Released in 2019, this series is the result of the artist's obsession with taxidermy pieces that he has collected by the dozens over almost seven years, before giving meaning to these life-like objects. The long preparation process required significant logistical and technical resources, especially for the transport and the high-end conservation of the animals.
These photographs are areas of cultural and mythological reference through which Christian Houge creates. Immortalising the destructive fire, he celebrates the animal’s release from the condemned to a state of permanent and eternal degradation. This scene, disturbing as it is frightening, represents a passive triumph for the animals who gradually die out on a backdrop of a luxurious nature reproduced by Victorian tapestries. The latter were chosen by the photographer to embody the human century-old imperialism over nature and their fellow man.
In this performance series, Christian Houge intends to continue with his artistic research and once again question the hierarchy established by man on the natural world he lives in. He says: “Exploring our relationship, and conflict, to Nature has been a recurring theme in all my series throughout the last twenty years. Residence of Impermanence if for sure the most expressive and thought provoking yet.”
If each of the artist's series explores this topic and issues, ‘Residence of Impermanence’ intends to raise awareness. Animals are synonyms of the natural world and become strong images with aesthetic impact enriched by symbolic references brought together by the artist. These images highlight a paradox: the emotion arising from the vision of these dead beings obliges us to question the indifference with which we witness the fast, quiet, and almost invisible disappearance of numerous species.
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