HONEST. Advocate: Mia Berg
Mia Berg - I Looked For You In Every Field
Shot on Nikon F-100, 35mm Nikon Portra NC film
2007
Mia Berg uses photography and video to explore the relationship between the human and the natural environment. Enacting a conversation with light, distance and gesture, Berg and her partner incorporates their bodies into her compositions as an extension of their environment, invoking a dialogue on human coexistence with the natural world.
The two figures create a cinematic space that examines ideas of intimacy and symbiosis in relationships between humans and those with nature. Nature and love are an inseparable dyad- Berg’s introduction of human love into her relationship with the natural environment tests the capacities of the heart to maintain ones innermost desires and needs within a primal and fluid relational context.
Berg received a BFA in Photography from Parsons School of Design in 2007 and currently works and resides in Brooklyn and Springs, NY.
Shot on Nikon F-100, 35mm Nikon Portra NC film
2007
“This body of self portrait work is autobiographical and represents my experience.
I find myself and my partner to repeatedly be the subject of my work because the process of creating each image requires a very in-the-moment interaction with the environment and each other.
The image records the experience as it plays out.
It is not a complete work to me if I am only behind the lens observing and recording, I am also an active participant.
The creation of the work allows for both thoughtful and unconscious introspection, allowing me to evaluate and internalize what is important to me.
There is a large emphasis today on living in the cultural and creative facilitator of the city structure, which has left the human need for and attention to nature undervalued and neglected.
It’s easy to forget how important it is not only to preserve but to experience the elements we came from.
Like the Romantic painters of the late 19th century responding to the Industrial Revolution and social and scientific rationalization, I hope people will again remember the richness and sublimity of communing with nature.
The heartbreak of destroying so much of our natural world is inversely manifested in a need for human love and compassion- not just romantically but universally.”
Shot on Nikon F-100, 35mm Nikon Portra NC film
2007
“Working with film affects my creative process in a way that lends itself to a more thoughtful still image. My digital work has a completely different process, focus and tone. I have also never found a way to digitally replicate the poetic richness of film.”