As with many of Anja Niemi’s projects, the artist herself appears in A Naturalist Guide to Magic, self-cast as the lone actress in a typically enigmatic role. This time, though, there’s a sense that Niemi’s character is by no means the leading lady; nature is the protagonist here, its living landscapes and sentient spirit overwhelming Niemi’s presence more than ever before.
In one image, a white cowboy hat—the sole trace of a human hand—floats past a desert backdrop, as if carried by a swirling wind. In another, weeds creep gently across a manmade pathway, slowly threatening access to a wooden jetty that stretches out over a silver lake. Elsewhere, a band of charging horses gallop freely through a grassy plain, unbridled momentarily from the expectations of their owners.
Whilst the characters that Niemi designs and embodies often follow a trajectory of transformation, the arc of this latest role closely echoes the artist’s own reality. Having bought a horse a few years back, Niemi soon encountered a problem of connection; her preconceived visions of the relationship they would share fell drastically short, inspiring a winding path of research and discovery. It soon became clear that the tried-and-tested equestrian model of human dominance and animal subservience would yield little in bridging their respective viewpoints. Like the horse, Niemi would need to pivot, reflect, adjust, and heal.
In trying to become attuned to the horse’s needs, to communicate with him somehow—as well as to better understand the energy she herself emanates—Niemi sought knowledge from a wide range of sources: horse trainers, physiotherapists, even energy healers. The process gave her a new appreciation for the natural world, whilst the endeavour to connect with non-human life forms opened countless new doors.
As was essential to Niemi’s recent journey, the images in A Naturalist Guide to Magic demand that viewers become conscious of nature’s subtlety. In inky monochrome, each one emits a slow organic quality—the visual sum is characteristically open-ended, its quiet poetry ushering in our own fantasies and projections.
Between two realms—that of reality and imagination—Niemi probes at a range of burning questions. Whose wishes take precedence in a world where human control is the status quo? Where do our fingerprints leave indelible traces on the landscapes we inhabit? And if we can learn to talk to an animal, what’s to be learnt from a meadow, a river, a tree or a stone?
The limited edition of 400 copies will be available shortly via Skeleton Key Press.
