Though these images have been circulating online for quite some time, they’re worth another reblog. In “Museum of Nature”, Finnish artist Ilkka Halso digitally manipulates photographs of archetypal landscapes, transforming them into endangered archipelagoes of natural terrain mediated by extensive pieces of infrastructure . More images after the jump!

Halso surgically inserts these large latticeworks into dying geographies which act to both protect and contain the landscapes while circulating (presumably, paying) visitors throughout the sites. A roller coaster whisks riders over a river and through trees. A grand ferro-vitreous network of monumental vaults house an entire forest. A theatre straddles a waterfall. Ecosystems are invariably “preserved” as large spectacles, at which point all evolutionary and growth processes are suppressed or altogether discontinued.

The images are a critique of our fetishistic concept of nature and of the destructive means by which we attempt to preserve this fallacious ideal. If we want to begin to save these sites from ruin, we must first alter our conceptions of the world before us.

In her other work, Halso imagines the custodial work necessary to keep these vast theme parks going. Large trees, either felled by natural causes, storm, or delinquents, are surreptitiously pieced back together, seemingly by machines or other technological enterprises as the restoration sites are devoid of any human workers. Just like magic, flowers return to full bloom, forests are perpetually made full, and the sky remains the most perfect shade of blue.

by Samuel Medina

posted in Uncategorized

tagged Art, Ilkka Halso, nature, photographs, roller coaster

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