Jonas Feige – This Soil We Have Created For Ourselves

This soil we have created for ourselves is the second photobook published by German photographer, Jonas Feige and his first solo venture. Zenker, also published in 2021, was made in collaboration with fellow photographer Yena Wernicke and visits present-day Cameroon to retrace the familial legacy of the German botanist and gardener August Zenker. While Zenker guides the viewer through the legacies of German colonialism using a combination of photography, archival materials, text and diary entries, This Soil marks a significant departure in approach. Not only is the subject less distant and more personal – This Soil is rooted in Feige’s heimat, or homeland, of Germany –  but by only using images, it refuses an obvious narrative, in favour of a form which is poetic and fragmented.

Bound with a single fold and left with uncut e­­­dges, the book’s format and page layout is simple and unassuming. There is no text, aside from a short passage taken from the play Wilheim Tell by author Fredrich Schiller, from which This Soil also takes its title. Despite this simplicity, This Soil is a haptic and sensory experience. Even to turn the page comes with a sense of trepidation; the intensity of the black ink feels like it should stain my fingertips. This sense of a threat, invisible but overarching, is echoed in Feige’s images which are saturated in visual metaphors; sunflowers bow their heads in mourning, darkness gathers like locust swarms on the outside of buildings, while long dark shadows stretch out across the landscape.

This Soil begins inside the mouth of a cave. Guided only by the light of a torch, it journeys slowly up through the soil, before emerging into the woodland above. The final images cross over a stream and open out into the rural landscape, ending on a doorway carved into tree. At first glance, these mythical places seem to appear out of folk and fairy tales, but their very real presence within the landscape poses deeper and more sinister questions: why are they here? What are they for? Are these the remains of the routes, trails and hiding places used by those fleeing persecution?

The sense of a threat, invisible but overarching, is echoed in Feige’s images which are saturated in visual metaphors…

References to the Third Reich appear fleetingly throughout This Soil, in the ruins of Nazi architecture but also in the present day. Archival images in the form of etchings and drawings of German aristocracy and nobility are contrasted against graffiti and dereliction. Through this juxtaposition, they remind us of the multiple, overlapping narratives which make up ‘German history’, including the many leading industrialists (often Nazi party members), whose painted family portraits now lie in the ruins of a once grand and majestic homes. In other instances, museum and heritage displays appear illuminated in the darkness; the mesh outline of an amphitheatre floats in the undergrowth. Covered in dust and graffiti, artefacts once regarded with such importance, now lie abandoned and discarded, condemned to insignificance. 

History is typically thought to be comprehensible through a list of statements or facts – “Here is where ‘this’ happened”. This Soil is an investigation of sites of memory and yet its strength lies in not relying on a linear re-telling of events. It invites us to sense the significance of what we see before us and in doing so, attempts to strike a difficult balance between bringing attention to Germany’s dark past, while also refusing to give it honour or pay homage. The past is instead omnipresent, all-enveloping, flowing seamlessly from one moment to the next. And it is this sense of an encroaching intrusion into the present which allows it to remain threating.

In This Soil, Feige appears not only critical of the horrors of history but also of how it is mediated in the present. Perhaps in allowing the past to live on in the shadows, also keeps it safe.

In the latter sections of This Soil, Feige turns to the architecture and landscape of the town and surrounding countryside. There are no people present but the streets do not feel empty. Instead, it is easy to imagine that the real locals are inside, hiding just outside of shot. At first the high contrast and smooth geometric lines of typical German houses taken in the cold light of day, remind me of the architectural photographs of Werner Mantz. But closer inspection reveals that here too, many of the windows are boarded up and abandoned. Dark shadows loom large and darkness gathers like mould on the outside of the buildings. It is a stark reminder of the other reality of Germany, of the many former industrial towns and villages on the brink of bankruptcy.

Feige is after all, a child of a unified Germany. Unlike previous generations who grew up in the immediate aftermath of war or during the division of East and West, his own experience of the past is indirect and fragmented. This Soil explores the ambiguities and complexities created by this distance in time, asking what it means to sense the past as it endures in the places we inhabit in the present. Feige’s portrayal of Germany is arguably dark and pessimistic. It is a position that many may feel uncomfortable with. Yet like other European nations, Germany has seen a rise in far-right political parties entering mainstream politics. In This Soil, Feige appears not only critical of the horrors of history but also of how it is mediated in the present. Perhaps in allowing the past to live on in the shadows, also keeps it safe.  

Jonas Feige
Kominek Books 2021





All Rights Reserved: Text ©Lucy Rogers
Images ©Jonas Feige/Kominek Books