Artist Statement on Invisible Project

Imagine a series of famous landmarks suddenly disappearing. Visualize the Eiffel Tower, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Colosseum, and the Louvre, and then, imagine them gone – vanished – the familiar becoming invisible.

Invisible Project plays with many of the well known, powerful Western and Eastern icons that are indelibly etched into our consciousness. I photographed famous European, American and Asian landmarks over a period of four years. Then a simple disconnect: all man made construction was digitally erased, which left only … nature. Once the landmark is eliminated, what remains is something new, something we may never have seen before, although it was always there.

The sense of conscious familiarity of these places is lost as soon as their images are erased.
Yet the landmarks, embedded in our subconscious visual memory, continue to appear as ghost images in the frame. The viewer’s perception, now free from any preconception, triggers an emotional response in which the real and the unreal begin to overlap and become one, only to diverge again.

The unique cultural attributes and differences of these places are reflected as much in the “remaining” nature as they were in the removed artifacts. And, the startling absence of the landmarks leads the viewer to examine standard assumptions about their symbolism and significance.

Manfred Menz