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    «Skyscrapers and Trees» series by Julian Salinas

     

     

    The fact that nearly all plants grow mostly at night and early at dawn is due to the interaction of control genes, which at the same time become active and then silent. Researchers from the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in San Diego made that discovery. The genes discovered by the scientists act as super ordinate regulator. They drive numerous hereditary plants important for plant growth just before dawn so that these growth hormones, light sensors and proteins form the control of the circadian rhythm.

     

     


    Text by Dominique Salathé

    Photography Julian Salinas

    We are here on the outskirts of the city. A few hundred meters further, the vastness of the landscape determines our perception. Nature, which is increasingly oppressed by us, loses its place. The settlements crawling up the hills, the towers waving from afar. The city is everywhere. Switzerland consumes one square meter space per second for new construction.

    We are about to lose the specific and uniqueness that has shaped us. We need to find new spaces new pictures and new places. The Pictures of Julian Salinas tell us about this search.

     

    Skyscrapers and Trees is a collection of photographs about spaces and their in-betweens. They are, in the best sense, pictures of the space of landscapes that are familiar to us a and at the same time unknown. No presence of humans, a suggestive deep and bright darkness. We do not recognize a place, hardly a house and if we did, it wouldn’t matter.

    The atmospheric light situation in the early morning and at night are a mixture of artificial- and low light — turning urban spaces into urban film stills.

     

    The peculiar unequal neighborhood between town and nature. The plants, Tujas are similarly unspecific as the architecture.

    Rem Koolhaas the Dutch architect and thinker asked in a 1995 text about the generic city: «Is the contemporary city like the contemporary airport – all the same?»

    Skyscrapers and Trees by Julian Salinas

    But unlike expected, he does not regret the loss of identity, but tries to gain these development qualities.

    Rem Koolhaas: It is the city without a face. It offers enough space for everyone. It is uncomplicated. It does not require any maintenance. If it is too small, it simply expands. If it is too old, then it will destroy herself and start anew. It is equally exciting or equally boring. It’s superficial she can produce a new identity every Monday morning as a Hollywood movie studio.

     


    Do we want to live in these places? The pictures of Julian Salinas ask us exactly this question. They are beautiful, but also creepy, they are familiar but also strange.

     

    Julian Salinas is a photographer based in Basel, Switzerland. During his career he has documented the beauty that lies in the bold corners of Switzerland, transgender models in Paris, the dull and ordinary landscapes in the deserts of California and a whole bunch of other interesting topics always with the eye of an observer, documenting the ephemeral, bizarre and kitsch.

    Visit Julian Salinas