Higher Ground

by Carl De Keyzer, Philippe Claudel

In Moments Before the Flood, Carl De Keyzer portrayed a Europe on the cusp of drowning, flooded due to climate change. In Higher Ground, the flood has already passed. His images show people that have fled to the high mountains, depicting a fictional world of tomorrow. A large portion of the work is irony, but it bears an uncomfortably close semblance to scientific predictions of the future. In 2006, when Keyzer first began working on Moments Before the Flood, there were a lot of doubts about the extent of global warming. Since then however, the effects of this inconvenient truth have increased by an alarming degree. Where it was once presumed that the sea level would rise 37 cm by 2050, now scientists estimate that there will be a 3-to-4-meter raise. Higher Ground explores what the world might look like if this happens, encouraging the reader to think about the impact of climate change. The images were taken in Austria, Switzerland, Germany, France and Spain. French top author Philippe Claudel wrote a new fictional story especially for this book. Text in English, French, and Dutch.

239 pages, Hardcover

Published November 29, 2016

About the author

Carl de Keyzer started his career as a freelance photographer in 1982 while supporting himself as a photography instructor at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent, Belgium. At the same time, his interest in the work of other photographers led him to co-found and co-direct the XYZ-Photography Gallery. A Magnum nominee in 1990, he became a full member in 1994.

De Keyzer constructs book and exhibition projects through an accumulative approach, using large and medium formats. Examples are Homo Sovieticus 1989 about the collapse of the Soviet Union, ZONA 2003 (visiting 50 prison camps in Siberia,) Trinity 2007 (a conceptual book about the trinity of power), DPR Korea (2017). His seminal project, God, Inc. I and II captured religious life on the margins of American society in 1992 and 2020.

Systems of power and their visual impact on society are the main themes of his work. Subjects related to colonialism, communism, religion... are documented in their own propagandistic style. Esthetics and 'house styles' of the systems in question are often adopted to obtain a layered effect.