Tombeau Imaginaire 3 2019

Elina Brotherus made this photograph, *Tombeau Imaginaire 3*. There's a figure standing in the water, facing the lake, which stretches to the base of distant, monumental mountains. The title makes me think about monuments and memorials. I can imagine Elina wanting to make a tribute not to a person, but to nature. To the landscape itself. The way that the trees become submerged into the water, as if sinking, makes me wonder if Elina perhaps feels a sense of loss. A longing for something that is gone. Or maybe a concern for the future. I love that trees are used to frame the figure, acting like guardians or gatekeepers to this place of reflection. Like painters, photographers are in an ongoing conversation, too. The process of seeing and capturing is an exchange of ideas across time. It's as if Elina is saying that memory, landscape, and loss can be transformed through the act of witnessing. And maybe through our witnessing, too.