Hans-Christian Schink: Traffic Projects

Empty highway bridges, gigantic concrete pillars, tracks for the Intercity railway--all devoid of humans and bathed in cool winter light. The theme of these striking images captured by Leipzig photographer Hans-Christian Schink is the massive road-and-rail infrastructure program for eastern Germany, projects designed to transform it into "flourishing landscapes." Schink's photographs map the violent incursions into the surroundings--"monsters of infrastructure," as the German daily newspaper FAZ aptly put it--as technology has cut and sliced its way through the countryside. All scenes are shown from the pedestrian's perspective, often at points destined to be bursting at the seams with traffic in the not-so-distant future. Yet despite the cool sobriety of these photographs, one also recognizes allusions to the landscape paintings of the Romantic period in images such as a roadbed disappearing into the distant mist.