Patrick Wack: Invaded Landscapes
In the exhibition “Azov Horizons,” part of Les Rencontres de la Photographie festival in Arles, photographer Patrick Wack captures a once-idyllic region now suspended between violence, silence, and the fading shadow of what it was before the invasion of southern Ukraine.
Shot in soft, pastel tones, the photographs depict beaches, fields, and border towns that appear serene, until their underlying tension surfaces. These seemingly quiet landscapes are already marked by conflict, inhabited by people caught between the routines of daily life and the looming, often invisible, weight of war.
With a visual language that oscillates between documentary and symbolism, Patrick Wack offers a meditative chronicle of war’s slow encroachment. As anthropologist Anastasia Piliavsky writes, “The translucent beauty of Azov Horizons hurts the eye with the poignance of just how fragile our calm, pleasure-filled European lives turned out to be.”
The exhibition “Azov Horizons” is on view at the Montmajour Abbey, part of the festival Les Rencontres de la Photographie in Arles, France, until October 5. The homonymous book is published by André Frère Éditions and available at the price of 60 Euro.
