25 - 27 October 2024

Fully focussed on feathers. No other creatures fascinate Luca more than birds. He realises his photographic ideas using unusual perspectives, underexposure, overexposure, slow shutter speeds, and sophisticated image compositions. Luca loves to highlight the beauty of birds in a minimalist, abstract and sometimes pictorial, whimsical way.

Luca Lorenz is a wildlife photographer from Berlin. Growing up in the countryside north of the city, Luca became enthusiastic about exploring nature at a young age. Fascinated by Germany's native birds, his watchful gaze always wanders to the treetops. Luca loves to observe bird behaviour for hours, immerse himself in bird songs, and share his enthusiasm and appreciation for these enchanting creatures with family and friends.
At only 19 years of age, Luca has already won a series of awards and is delighted that his photographs have attracted so much attention.

www.lucalorenz.de

More than a nature exhibition, Land of wolves has the semblance of a photo reportage of the type that is rare in the world of wildlife photography. While the craft of the image hunter usually leads photographers to roam far and wide in search of coveted subjects, Olivier Larrey chose to shut himself away in a minuscule wooden hide for weeks on end without coming out, waiting for the animals to come to him.
It was on the outer limits of a no man’s land at the Finnish-Russian border that he plunked down his adventurer’s backpack to realise his dream of encountering and monitoring a pack of wolves.
He invites us to join him in the midst of a peatland on the edge of the boreal forest -  to sit quietly and spend a moment admiring life at its wildest.
During five voyages and eighty days of observation, Olivier captured never before seen images in both colour and black & white. One of these stunning photographs went on to win the grand prize in the 2021 Montier International Wildlife Photo Competition.

Sweat pours down our faces as we climb over a scree slope on a summer's day with almost 30°C. At 3000 m a.s.l., we come to a halt in front of one of the last ice giants of the Alps. Regardless of where we look, there is water rushing over the ice, splashing and gurgling, as boulders tumble downslope. The seemingly endless ice masses that have formed and shaped Alpine landscapes for thousands of years are disappearing faster and faster.
We belong to the generation that will experience the disappearance of most glaciers in the Alps first-hand. In the last 200 years, Germany has lost around three quarters of its glacial mass. The Schlatenkees, the largest valley glacier in East Tyrol, Austria, retreated by 89 meters in 2022 alone. With a 2.7°C rise in global temperature, scientists predict that glaciers worldwide will shrink by 90 % by the end of the century. Most glaciers in Austria and Germany may even disappear within the next 50 years. But what is happening in the Alps seems trivial compared to the global threat posed by sea level rise due to ice melting in the Arctic and Antarctic.
With our project, we want to provide unique insights into this wonderful environment and address the inevitable consequences of climate change. Global warming will not wait for politics and society, we need to act now.

During his almost obsessive search for the perfect photograph in the region's forests, Felix captures images that are characterised by reserved colours and, above all, a moody tranquillity. Here, fog plays an essential role. Fog that gently covers trees like a veil and shrouds the landscape in mysterious silence. The large-format prints in Felix' exhibition showcase these calm, decelerated, yet fleeting moments.

Born in Heidelberg in 1980, Felix Wesch lived in Stuttgart, Vienna and Marburg an der Lahn before moving to Bonn in 2020. He likes to describe himself as a photographic opportunist who prefers to find his subjects in the natural environments of his immediate surroundings where he can quickly respond to special light and weather conditions. Currently, Felix has a special fondness for the forests around Bonn. In addition to his website and blog, he runs a YouTube channel about photography, writes articles, holds workshops, and simply loves being out and about in nature around his home town.

www.felixwesch.de

Portraying research for conservation | The ‘6th Mass Extinction’ is in full swing: in Germany and all over the world, the loss of biodiversity poses an enormous challenge for species communities and habitats – and therefore also for the livelihood of us humans. This is because biological diversity means stability in times of environmental change: the more complex the network of species is, the better it is equipped to cope with changing conditions. The current mass extinction is primarily caused by human activity. Human-wildlife conflicts, habitat encroachment, pollutants and toxins in nature as well as environmental crime have resulted in an extinction rate that is more than 1000 times higher than the normal evolutionary rate.

However, human action can also be a key to preserving the remaining biodiversity: Science and research generate valuable knowledge on global environmental change and provide effective concepts, methods and technologies for species and environmental protection.

“Mediterranean” is a word which immediately makes people think of crystal-clear sea waters and sandy beaches, historically rich and friendly touristic destinations. For others the same word might be connected instead with the recent dramas of human migration or unsolved conflicts. The Mediterranean remains indeed one of the most exploited parts of the World, and often considered as the cradle of Western civilization and a veritable melting pot of different cultures.
Seldom, if ever, this Region is related to wild nature. Truly, most of its ancient wilderness, facing millennia of exploitation, has stepped aside, but it actually remains one of the Planet’s main biodiversity hotspots, hosting an amazing variety of species often living in surprisingly pristine places. The Mediterranean is a pivot between Europe, Africa and Asia, where it plays both the role of an ecological barrier and an important corridor for many different species, including us humans.
The unique history of the region stands as an example of a millenary coevolution between humans and nature. Sadly, all these aspects are often neglected and there is an urgency to tell the broad public the story of the Mediterranean lingering and fragile wilderness.