Felwa | Naure in Transition

‘The great challenge in our work is to look at nature without putting ourselves or humans at the centre, but by giving the plant world a voice,’ Arja Hop (1968) and Peter Svenson (1956) say of their photography. Felwa reflects this artist duo’s fascination with Veluwe plants like pipeweed and velvet wood – which were significant to the inhabitants of that area thousands of years ago – with beautiful analogue images of this endlessly changing natural area.

Arja Hop (Hierden, 1968) trained at the Academy of Fine Arts Sint-Joost in Breda and later studied biology and philosophy for a year. Since 2013, she has been researching colours derived from plants growing in specific areas. Peter Svenson (Palmerston North, NZ, 1956) studied photographic technology at Wellington Polytechnic in New Zealand and later physics at the University of Auckland before moving to the Netherlands. From 1982 to 2004, he worked as an analogue photo printer in various Amsterdam laboratories. In 2005, he founded Aap-lab, where many renowned photographers have their work printed. Hop and Svenson have collaborated since 2015, sharing a fascination for experimenting with plants, colour, and analogue photographic techniques.