Photographer Jim Naughten has been nominated for the Prix Elysee prize for his exciting new project 'The Mountains of Kong'.
“The Mountains of Kong are a fabled mountain range that existed on maps from 1798 through to the late 1880s when they were finally declared to be nonexistent. However, I will create a series of stereoscopic images that tell a very different story. My stereoscopic images of the Mountains of Kong will record the expedition for posterity and scientific purposes, very much in the manner of earlier expeditions. The resulting images will be viewable in three dimensions by using the same stereoscopic technology made popular in the late 1800s which allowed Victorians to travel to the four corners of the world whilst sitting at home in their armchairs. The evidence in three dimensional forms will therefore be irrefutable.
In the Mountains of Kong I discover extraordinary, otherworldly landscapes, encounter strange hitherto unknown creatures, bizarre plants, and lost tribes that seem to dwell in a parallel universe. I faithfully record these true events with my stereoscopic camera, aping the explorers and expedition scientists and photographers of the past.
The work aims to be both engaging and playful, but also will function as a comment on the mutability of history and our ever evolving and malleable relationship with the past.”
