From 'Cette montagne c’est moi'
In January 2006 Witho Worms started to photograph terrils or slag heaps in Belgium, France, Germany, Poland and Wales. These mountains are the visual remnants of the coal mining industry. In Europe, these black pyramids are the symbols of a vanishing era that began with the industrial revolution and has now evolved into an age dominated by binary code. The book of this project is part of the collection of the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.
For this project Worms reformulated the 19th-century technique of carbon printing. From every mountain that he photographed, he took some coal, milled it into a pigment and used it to print the negatives. Various shades of browns and blacks reflect the specific constitution of the slag heaps. The almost uniform shapes of these landscapes are translated into a highly individual approach. In this work object and subject, mountain and photograph, have become one. The photographs show us the socio-political reality of the last 100 years. They reflect the changing relationship between man and his environment in such a way that mind and matter are closely tight together.
Witho Worms on Cette montagne c’est moi:
“Cette montagne c’est moi is about me. Translated literally, it means ‘This mountain that’s me’. It was initially an association of image and meaning that let to the subject matter. The carbon in coal is the same carbon referred to in carbon printing. Carbon printing is a photographic printing process that is excellently suited for reproducing dark tones. Moreover, the black triangle of a coal mountain silhouetted in the landscape is a fitting sequel to my earlier photographs of Dutch landscapes comprised of rectangles. For this project I developed a variation on the carbon printing process, a photographic printing technique from the 19th century. I took a bit of coal from every mountain I photographed. I then ground this coal into a pigment that I used to make photographic paper. I used this paper to make a print of a mountain with the coal originating from that mountain. In other words, the object of the photo, the mountain, has become one with the subject of the photo, the print itself.”