On a rainy October 20th evening, Prada feted its new collaborative exhibition with Magnum Photos at their store in New York’s Soho. “Witness to Nature” reflects on the evolving relationship between man and the natural environment and encompasses the different visions of eight photographers. They capture nature’s humbling majesty as well as its fragile ephemerality.
The exhibition runs until November 6 and features over 200 images in the store’s sloping Rem Koolhaas-designed gallery space. Highlights include Japanese photographer Hiroji Kubota’s poetic Chinese mountain ranges and Nanna Heitmann’s ruminative mediations on secluded banks of the Yenisey River in Siberia. Themes of global warming, mythology, native customs, and the surreal blight of urbanization are also explored.
Prada Reporter collaborated with Magnum on the exhibition. Courtesy of Prada.
The exhibition is part of the Prada Reporter initiative that aims to “forge vital connections between fashion and other languages” and support “numerous forms of creativity.” The space has been outfitted in a reportage theme with oversized decorative silver cameras and equipment, as well as chicly-attired crouched shutterbugs. The mannequins, dressed in the vaguely photojournalism-themed capsule collection (items include multi-pocketed Re-Nylon vests and baggy trousers with an ample silhouette to squat for that perfect shot) are posed as at-the-ready paparazzi.