Silent Spring

© Joakim Eskildsen

Silent Spring is a series by Joakim Eskildsen made during the Corona Virus lockdown this spring at his house in the countryside 29 kilometers outside Berlin.

For the Danish photographer who has been pursuing a life compatible with not mortgaging the future or the planet, it increased the desire to live in a durable world. “The problems we are confronted with at this moment are not close to being compared to the ones we will probably be facing in the future. I think we need to weigh the pros and cons of all our decisions. For decades, we are living in a sort of utopia based on the idea that this planet for some incomprehensible reason is not subject to the laws of nature. We have grown up in a society in which the living standards are profoundly incoherent. The system based on growth is not sustainable. Still today, we teach our children to saw the branch they are sitting on.”

Silent Spring is part of the Home Works series that Joakim Eskildsen has been working on for the past 15 years, a project trying to work in the immediate surroundings instead of focusing on projects that involve extensive travels, as he did previously. The current place is the seventh home in 15 years, each home becoming a chapter of the book to be published with Steidl Publishers.

The title of the series is taken from Rachel Carson's book of 1962. In her dedication, she quotes Albert Schweitzer: “Man has lost the capacity to foresee and to forestall. He will end by destroying the earth.”

click the link to see all the images in Silent Spring