Ori Gersht

The Clearing brought together a new film, The Forest and series of photographs by the Israeli born, British based artist Ori Gersht. This work explored landscapes embedded with both personal and historic resonance. The work was produced in the forest around Kolomyia, in the Ukraine, where some of Gersht's wifes relatives found harsh haven from Nazi persecution. Mythologised and idealised in the Enlightenment, epitomised in the German Romantic painter Caspar David Friedrich's works, the area was to bear witness to appalling atrocities during World War II.

The film was made deep in the forest in what initially appears to be a sylvan idyll, bathed in dappled pools of light. Then a number of trees start to fall infront of the camera, crashing down to earth in an overwhelming cacophony of breaking timbers and branches. Afterwards silence and tranquillity returns as if nothing had happened.

The film was a co-commision between The Photographers' Gallery and Film and Video Umbrella. Show curated by Camilla Brown.