Fotograf Magazine

Ondřej Vinš’s work often reflects the time he spends in nature and
landscapes, and their variedness has become a source of inspiration
for the installation in the lower floor of the Fotograf Gallery. Vinš
has mapped the relief of the Central Bohemian Uplands using
a cartographic method. In certain moments, he blackened the tracing
paper attached to the map in places he could see. This material he later
used as a basic default element of the entire exhibition – an installation
consisting of two objects: the first one is an abstract landscape made
up of stacked and highlighted darkened areas, creating an illusion of
motion, like a filmstrip of a strange format.

The illusion is then made concrete by the second object when
black becomes white, and the projection of a 16mm film illuminates
parts of the blind landscape model. The landscape is doubled with
the help of a suspended mirror reflecting the model that loses its
spaciousness and returns back to its two-dimensional form. It becomes
a scheme of motion on a plane – a map that not only records the
topographical area, but also shows Ondřej Vinš’s journey when he
walked in the Central Bohemian Uplands, which is a principle we know
from mobile applications.

Thus, the exact scientific method and factual description miraculously
becomes a poetic record of travels, similar to landscape painting. And
both make sense.

Veronika Daňhelová