Minett - Research - Gathering visual information

The choice for my theme was easy to make. I wanted to research on something I could identify with,  dear to my heart and which was reasonably easy to reach in terms of vicinity.

I started by visiting Esch-Belval, to take pictures. This site has been restored but has kept some original buildings from the iron ore industry and at the same time integrates  modern architecture. Also the University of Luxembourg has moved here a couple of years ago. Some say that this mixture of buildings isn't really a success but I like it, at least part of it.

The second site I visited was the Metzeschmelz which stands in high contrast to the "polished" one in Esch, it is practically all in ruins, most of it is closed and you can only take pictures from a certain distance. Fortunately an art exhibition has been organized there during summer so that I could access it (only on weekends). Some of the buildings were open and you could "admire" the decay of the walls, the rust, etc..... I went there on several occasions early in the morning when no visitors were there and I could, more or less, enjoy the silence and listen to what it had to say to me... This place closes this weekend and will go through a radical change in the future, leaving me with a certain sadness

Visual inspirations are numerous on both sites ranging from the (modern) architecture, the buildings in ruins, rests of rubber of stones lying around, decay, nature regaining its territory.

This little spider diagram only regroups some of the ideas that came into my mind . I'me sure some will be added in the future

The next pictures show the first pages in my sketchbook. It was hard to resist the temptation and not to get carried away and experiment with the different shapes straight away. You may remember some of the pages from Summer School but added some more.

Here I tried to make a collagraph print, I obviously didn't want to reproduce the motiv but wanted to reflect the general impression of it

An exhibition  I will have to visit: Stemme vun der Schmelz - Voices of the "Schmelz" general term for iron ore industry

Charcoal and graphite

Nature and debris

one thingt I always find fascinating is the fact that nature tries to regain its territory. In Schifflange where iron ore was extracted it changed to the extent that now wild orchids are growing there ....

 

Windows

broken windows are always or usually a sign, that nobody's living in  the building anymore. The are like the empty eyes of a house....

An altered photo of a window: overly of two pictures windows and structures on a tree

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I have a large collection of photographs taken on both sides and will try to regroup them, trying to bring some order into them. This may sound weird but somehow I need a "clean up" in my brain to enable me to move forward.