Simon Grunert is a German photographer. After completing a degree in North American Studies and History at the Free University of Berlin he started studying photography at the University of Applied Sciences Bielefeld, where he is currently enrolled in the master’s degree. Most of his work is based on geographical boundaries that constitute each projects narrative foundation. However, his photographs are primarily concerned with undermining traditional photographic strategies of conveying a sense of place. The viewers are not supposed to be sure of what terrain they are being guided through. What happens in each given is space is as magic as it is real.
Senne I
“Senne I” is a story about rural Germany. Senne, at first, is merely the term that designates a stretch of land south of where I live. Yet, in the course of my investigation of the region, it becomes something generic, a proxy for something extending beyond its geographical confines. Senne is everywhere. The photographs, bearing few references to time and place, attempt to construct the image of an imaginary new region in which fantastic elements are reconciled with the topography and folklore that we know. Cultural practices we are familiar with are juxtaposed with images that we cannot quite make sense of. However, these seemingly fictional elements are intrinsic to our reality and thus allow us to view the country in which we live in more clearly.
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