Fri, Feb 02 2018

Lucas Foglia: Human Nature

Words: by Tommy Wiratama
Photography: Lucas Foglia

“I grew up on a small farm, 30 miles east of New York City,” writes Lucas Foglia in his short introduction to Human Nature. “Growing our food and bartering, my family felt shielded from the strip malls and suburbs around us... In 2012, Hurricane Sandy flooded out fields and blew down the oldest trees in the woods. On the news, scientists linked the storm to climate change caused by human activity. I realised that if humans are changing the weather, then there is no place on Earth unaltered by people.”

Human Nature is a photographic series concerning people, nature and the science of people’s relationship to wilderness, even if shaped by human. It begins in cities and moves through forests, farms, deserts, ice fields, and oceans, towards wilderness. Funny, sad, or sensual, the photographs illuminate the human need to connect to the wildness in ourselves. This is the kind of hybrid terrain that Foglia has made his own and his often large-scale digital images are even more dramatic – and even more unreal – when viewed as prints in a gallery.