Markus Heinsdorff’s multi-year project series combines photography, video, natural found objects and installations into an art and species archive of natural habitats. Created over more than two decades in numerous regions of the world, the works address biodiversity, climate change and human intervention in nature. The title Regen-Wald also refers to the fundamental connection between water, rain and forest. At the Museum Haus der Fotografie in Burghausen, Germany, 320 plant and tree portraits from 32 countries were shown together with natural found objects and installations; a selection was later on view in Terminal 2 of Munich Airport. Regen-Wald II at the Kunsthalle Studienkirche also documented structures built with Indigenous communities in Ecuador and Venezuela. Reuse, recycling, working and designing with natural materials, and forest as a resource were further components of the concept. Exhibition: “Regen-Wald”

(Catalogue excerpt)

An exhibition and installation series that approaches the ecosystem of the forest in three stages. The title directs attention not only to the forest but equally to water as the foundation of all life. Rainforests exist in the tropics as well as in cooler regions. They represent a particularly rich biodiversity that is in retreat worldwide and in need of special protection.

Many species have already disappeared forever, without ever having been studied or their function for the cycles of intact nature and the environment determined. After the oceans, trees are the most significant influence on the global climate, as the world’s most important producers of oxygen while at the same time effectively reducing carbon dioxide emissions. As early as the 80s, Markus Heinsdorff began to engage intensively with the theme of nature as an artist. On travels and project stays, his first portraits of landscapes emerged, along with an extensive photo archive. Inspired by his mother, who was already running a smallholding based on organic farming principles in its early days, he also created his first installations, which incorporated nature or were built directly from natural materials.

The extensive rainforest project shows works and collections by the artist – alongside 320 photographic portraits of plants and trees from 32 countries / 39 locations, a butterfly collection, insect portraits and a video installation on the Panguana research station in Peru, a water-drop rain installation, documentation of the academy and school buildings built with and among the Achuar and Piaroa Indigenous communities in Ecuador and Venezuela, and a large-scale installation of 12 oak and ash trunks up to 5 m long and 0,7 m in diameter from the region around Burghausen, Germany.

Museum Haus der Fotografie