Fernweh

‘Finding a path amongst the vegetation and boulders of the photographic distortions, I imagined Goethe’s voyage to Italy, particularly his parcours south of Rome on his way to Naples.’ – Tacita Dean

Fernweh is an improbable landscape made of cliffs, forest and dunes, created from four small discoloured nineteenth century photographs Tacita Dean found in flea markets. The horizon is a famous outcrop, called Sächsische Schweiz – Saxony’s Switzerland, near Dresden. The foreground is unknown sand and scrub.

The German expression ‘Fernweh’ describes a longing to travel, an aching to get away, unlike ‘Wanderlust’, which is a more spirited desire to be in the landscape. It is the etymological opposite of ‘Heimweh’, which means homesickness. ‘We do not have a single word in English for this more considered desire to be gone,’ Dean explains. ‘This work should be approached through its title.’