Metamorphosis: Rainer Zerback

The photographic series Metamorphosis explores the societal, cultural, and scenic dimensions of rural areas as a place to live and create. Taking the Swabian Alps as an example, photographer Rainer Zerback (b. 1958) depicts the far-reaching and successful structural transformation of this region. Zerback, whose photography has for many years focused on the interplay between space, society, and time, in this publication pursues an artistic-analytical approach. His images combine precise documentary observation with a clear aesthetic language. With themes ranging from agriculture, religion and local customs to how people deal with the past and memory, and further to infrastructure, mobility, technology and tourism, it is clear that rural areas are no longer simply a place to retreat to, but are also a key arena for the negotiation of societal processes and future-oriented developments. Zerback’s works are neither mere documentation nor pure aestheticisation. Instead, they open a space within which the ambiguities of rural transformation are condensed: progress and loss, tradition and innovation, proximity and unfamiliarity. As such, the series Metamorphosis is far more than a photographic record–it is a visual statement on the question of how we wish to live in the future in the field of tension between nature, culture, and the economy. Text in English and German.