With “The Weight of Air” the Singaporean photographer Ng Hui Hsien documents her discovery of nature. Shot in Iceland, this series is a micro-observation of the huge Nordic macrocosm.
Raised in Singapore, Hui Hsien was used to a year-long summer, an urban jungle that devours the landscape and feeling disconnected from the environment. Iceland struck her: the omnipresent nature, dry winds and blue lights were something she had never seen before. This series has the wonder of Hui Hsien’s first breathes in the frozen air. The shots are as delicate as the first touch of her fingers on the snow, and reflect the amazement of her gaze that rambles down the wide plains.
“Wandering through the landscapes, I wondered about their age, the life forms and the events they have witnessed, and how they have come into being. And I wondered about the place of a human being in this bigger scheme of things.”
A focus on the details rather than a panorama of these majestic lands allowed the photographer to create a dream-like experience for the viewer. The intent of her photography is to evoke a feeling, not to craft a defined visual experience. It is a mood rather than a storyline that drives our path through the shots. “There was once when I went trekking on glaciers. Standing on a glacier and looking at awe-inspiring mountains in the distance, it felt like I understood timelessness in that brief moment. My existence was insignificant in comparison, and I somehow had a visceral connection to the glaciers and the mountains. It felt almost like I was part of them.”
Images from “The Weight of Air” © Ng Hui Hsien
