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Photograph by Marianna Rothen
Untitled, from the series “Alien Camp.”
In 2003, the Canadian photographer Marianna Rothen began experimenting with a Polaroid SX-70, using gel filters to amplify the camera’s painterly effect. Rothen travelled to major national parks as well as to man-made spaces—museum dioramas, landscaped pool spas—to create images that blur the line between natural and staged environments. In her series “Alien Camp,” landscapes resemble the painted backdrops of old Westerns, while fake plants and taxidermied animals look almost real and, as Rothem put it, “perversely perfect.”
