discovering places reclaimed by nature

If you have run out of gift ideas, I recommend a wonderful album, Naturalia II. All photos are signed Jonk. The artist-photographer takes us on a world tour of places abandoned by humans and taken over by nature, plants and animals.

We discover a gigantic hangar in Taiwan which now houses a jungle under a jagged roof. We also follow Jonk in a car cemetery in Sweden, in an abandoned farm in France, a deserted military base in Germany.

The return in force of nature is for the photographer the first marker of the passage of time, but also a wide field of reflection:

“Whatever man builds, whatever man abandons, everything is taken over by nature. In the end, there will be no more trace of man. I especially want to make people think about our place on Earth, our relationship with nature, and showing that we must all be humble in the face of it. “

“I wanted to show what the Earth would look like if man were to disappear.”

Jonk, photographer

to franceinfo

No pessimism in Jonk’s work. Just the desire to share an awareness, an ecological message. The photographer visited the Chernobyl zone 6 times, between 2015 and 2021. There, nature took back its rights. Abandoned buildings sometimes already disappear under the vegetation.

On each of his trips, Jonk has witnessed the strength of plants, their resilience, like the tree that grows in a bumper car merry-go-round, or the ivy that covers the facades a little more each year.

Nature returns, it is also more or less pleasant encounters with certain animals …

“During my last trip to Chernobyl last May, I came across the famous Przewalski horses. There were four or five on the side of the road. I had an exceptional chance to see them. attacked by bats. In Taiwan, I have encountered spiders and in particular Giant Orb Spiders (Nephila) that can be the size of a head!

“In the Caribbean, gigantic iguanas almost fell on my head!”

“The most striking encounter was with a group of monkeys in Taiwan. I heard banging, knocking … I realized that it was a family of monkeys passing on the roof of the warehouse where I was there. I was scared to death that I had been spotted, because I usually enter these places without permission. “

Discover, be surprised, admire, reflect, Naturalia II tick all of these boxes. The album is self-published by Jonk. It is for sale on the site jonk-photography.com