Recollecting Landscapes – Rephotography, Memory And Transformation 1904-1980-2004-2014

Botanist Jean Massart made a series of landscape photographs in Flanders between 1904 and 1911 to depict natural vegetation in the landscape and the relationship between agriculture and geography. In 1980 Georges Charlier re-photographed about 60 of Massart’s images, and in 2003 Jan Kempenaers was commissioned to re-photograph the same scenes. A fourth series was made by Michiel De Cleene in 2014. A varying emphasis on documentarian, artistic, and scientific aspects can be seen in each. The collection now serves research on urbanisation and landscape mutations.