Photography exhibition by Vincent Jendly
As I explored the port of Dunkirk, my feet sinking into the coal sludge, I felt as though I were gazing upon a sombre figure from the past, emerging from the era of the Industrial Revolution. Before me lay a landscape covered in black molasses and dust, brutal and grimy, transformed beyond recognition – a dark and spectacular embodiment of the Anthropocene, this ‘age of man’, one of those visions that suggest an imminent collapse, with an almost apocalyptic air about it. A hypothetical prospect, yet one nonetheless: the sheer scale of the marks on this vast site made me perceive the imprint of my fellow human beings on a global scale. Indeed, this is precisely the case: the impact of our activities is such that humankind is becoming a geological force. We are in the process of creating new types of sediment, such as plastiglomerate – a rock layer that will consist largely of microplastics, spread across the entire globe.
Another novelty for the palaeontologists of the future: due to the extinction of wild megafauna and our impact on species in general, 93 per cent of the biomass of terrestrial vertebrates already consists of domesticated species, led by cattle, which satisfy our unreasonable appetite for meat. It is even likely that, within three centuries, the cow will become the largest animal on Earth – an almost unbelievable prediction. In future archaeological excavations, is this what will remain of us? Cow fossils and a millimetre of black particles?
Vincent Jendly was born in Fribourg (Switzerland) in 1969. He has lived and worked in Lausanne since 1994. He has devoted himself entirely to professional photography since 2009. Having previously been shown in Dunkirk, his latest series will be exhibited for the first time in Switzerland, at FOCALE.
