Richard Mosse's theme is conflicts. Even in his early works - in Gaza, Kosovo, Sarajevo, on the Mexican border and in Iraq - he followed the fault lines of conflicts. He never stands in the middle of the battle field, there is no whistling or shooting around him, but rather he follows the moods, the outlines, the fall lines, in other words the conditions and effects of conflicts. 

Since "Infra", his great work on the endless, serious sources of conflict in East Congo, Richard Mosse has been sounding out the boundaries between conventional reportage photography and positions of contemporary conceptual art. Color forms the formal starting point for these works, as Mosse used an infrared material developed by the U.S. military in collaboration with Kodak, which was develloped to detect enemies in confusing terrain and reproduces green plant components in intense shades of red. 

In "Heat Maps", his tremendous work on migration, he uses a thermal imaging camera. It operates thus not with the admission of visible light, but with a special camera, a so-called thermal imaging machine, which can hold heat differences deeply in the infrared range. Usually applies here: Light is warm, dark is cold. What we get to see are not recorded reflections of visible light, but registrations of heat differences, so-called "heat maps". A camera technology with which the military can "see" up to 30 km by day and night. 

Finally, in "Ultra", Richard Mosse goes to the jungle, the rain forest, the Amazon in Brazil. He captures there the precious, irreplaceable beauty of the rainforest eco-system through a closely examined depiction of its plant and insect life. At a time when the fragile rainforest is under serious threat from population pressure, burning and deforestation, cattle farms, palm oil plantations, illegal goldmines, and other human-built infrastructure, Mosse investigates the complexity of its biome, its symbiotic relationships and interdependency.

The MAST Foundation is showing for the first time in extensive excerpts the complete works of Richard Mosse and at the same time the very latest works that are only now being created in the Brasilian Amazon region. Along with his extraordinary images, his two large, immersive video installations "The Enclave" and "Incoming" will also be on display - as well as his 16-channel video wall "Grid (Moira)". 

Curator of the exhibition: Urs Stahel