Giulia Incicco holds a Bachelor’s degree in French and German Language and Literature and a Master in Environmental Humanities from Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, where she graduated with distinction. Her Master thesis, Fragments and Traces: An Ecocritical Analysis of Neue Sachlichkeit Photography (Albert Renger-Patzsch, Bernd and Hilla Becher, and Beate Gütschow), examined ecocritical approaches to photography within German visual culture. Her research interests include environmental history, photography, and modern and contemporary art and culture.
The art duo Bernd and Hilla Becher, renowned for their focus on documenting obsolete industrial structures destined to disappear, gave birth to a work at the intersection of different genres, which contributed to revolutionizing the course of late 20th-century photography. In the present work, the inherent documentary value of their photographs will be highlighted, while also shedding light on a shifting perception of landscape appreciation, particularly related to the iconic exhibition New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape, in which they participated as the only two Europeans among ten artists. Consideration will be given to how their work contributed to the development of industrial archaeology in the Ruhr, where their systematic documentation of vanishing industrial sites played a crucial role in redefining heritage preservation. The case of Zeche Zollern, an Art Nouveau industrial complex in Dortmund, will be examined as a concrete example of how their photographs influenced the recognition and conservation of industrial heritage. Finally, their work will be contextualized within contemporary environmental discourse, particularly in relation to the Anthropocene, emphasizing how their images raise critical questions about sustainability, the transformation of post-industrial landscapes, and the evolving relationship between industry and the environment.
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