Wandering through the ancient cedar forest of Yakushima, Jacqueline Hassink realised just how addicted she had become to her cellphone and the inner peace achieved when she set aside the device. The Japanese island is amongst a number of the planet鈥檚 dwindling 鈥渨hite spots鈥 lacking wifi and cellular coverage, six of which the New York-based photographer documented for the Unwired project (2010-2017).
The work was physically demanding. To travel deep into the forest, Hassink and her assistant hiked for nine hours with a Pentax 6×7 camera and equipment. 鈥淚 spent so much time of my life in Japan, in Kyoto and Yakushima. I am mesmerised by this really old forest. When you鈥檙e walking in the forest and the moss and these really old trees that are thousands of years old, nature becomes much stronger than you as a human being, and that becomes a very powerful experience,鈥 Hassink says.
The arresting stillness of these huge prints 鈥 some measuring 160 by 200 cm 鈥 is compounded by the transitory nature of the moment they captured. There鈥檚 a summery mist and small ice formations in Nordvest-Spitsbergen National Park in the desolate Norwegian arctic islands of Svalbard and a babbling brook on a hillside of Iceland鈥檚 uninhabitable Vatnaj枚kul volcanic glacier, places only accessible in the warmer months.听Hassink deliberately used analogue film, itself a vanishing medium, to create these images of inner silence she likens to as 鈥淏uddhist experience.鈥 Whilst economics drive the existence of remote white spotlike these or in northern Kenya, where people travel dozens of kilometres to get to a hotspot, there are also artificial ones such as a luxurious digital detox spa in Baden-Baden, Germany.
Interior scenes have Hassink exploring the relationship between inside and outside, a theme central to her previous project, View, Kyoto (2004-2014). Blue paint peels off the walls of a desolate gymnasium where a pommel horse and old landing mat echo the once bustling activity of Pyramiden, an abandoned Russian mining settlement in Svalbard. Unwired Landscapes is part of a broader multimedia project, White Spots, that has seen Hassink team up since 2013 with documentary filmmaker Bregtje van der Haak and information designer Richard Vijgen to create a white spots world map, app and documentary.
An almost polar opposite approach defines iPortrait, an accompanying all-digital series. Using her iPhone to surreptitiously take around 900 pictures of commuters hunched over their own smartphones in some of the world鈥檚 busiest cities erased the discomfort Hassink usually feels when photographing people and focused on their body language. No unsettling gazes here 鈥 they didn鈥檛 even notice she was there, busy as they were engaging in that most communal yet parallel experience of our times. Even in the most crowded of subway cars in London, Moscow, New York, Paris, Seoul, Shanghai and Tokyo, it only takes these tiny machines that have become an extension of our own minds to live the moment in isolation.
What first inspired Hassink to examine this kind of exclusively private experience in crowded public places was the sight of a kimono-clad woman intensely focused on her cell phone as she stood at a restaurant in Kyoto. What might appear to be an incongruous, contradictory scene is actually commonplace in Japan, but it鈥檚 also one of complete detachment. Absorbed as she was in her phone, the woman was momentarily cut off from her surroundings, despite the device鈥檚 promises of connection.
During a recent exhibition at the Nederlands Fotomuseum in Rotterdam, visitors had to remove their shoes and mobiles before entering a darkened space with the images projected on the walls alongside information identifying the subway system and ambient sound. The installation, which travels next to the MAST Foundation in Bologna, was 鈥渓ike entering a temple,鈥 said Hassink. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 when the story started 鈥 people were talking to each other.鈥
Olivia Hampton
Jacqueline Hassink: Unwired. Benrubi Gallery, New York. Until 17 August. For more information,
Credits:
1. Jacqueline Hassink,听Lillieho虉o虉kfjorden 2,听79掳14鈥30.8鈥漀 11掳41鈥32.2鈥滶,听Krossfjorden, Nordvest-Spitsbergen National Park听Svalbard, Norway,听听Summer,18 August听2016.
2.听 Jacqueline Hassink,听Onoaida 12,听30掳18鈥1鈥漀 130掳31鈥28鈥滶 Onoaida Trail, Yakushima, Japan.听Fall,听2 October听2016.
3.听Jacqueline Hassink,听Nordva虋gen 2,听79掳00鈥19.2鈥漀 12掳01鈥47.6鈥滶听Blomstrandbreen,听Svalbard, Norway,听Summer,听18 August听2016.
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