Switzerland
Taiyo Onorato & Nico Krebs:
WATER COLUMN
This series grew from years of close collaboration between the artists and marine scientists, blending exploration with experimentation. Set in research labs along the Red Sea, between the African continent and the Arabian Peninsula, the artists documented coral reefs, jellyfish, and other deep-sea life, alongside the swirling clouds of vivid pigments released underwater. They were captured through advanced underwater photography while the artists scuba dived.
Deep beneath the ocean’s surface lies an unseen world, largely unexplored and accessible only through advanced technology. The work suggests that the fascination with nature’s hidden worlds is inseparable from an awareness of their vulnerability.
Taiyo Onorato & Nico Krebs succeeded in creating photographic works that probe the boundaries between reality and fiction. With wit and precision, Onorato & Krebs turn the ocean into a stage where reality and fiction merge.
This series grew from years of close collaboration between the artists and marine scientists, blending exploration with experimentation. Set in research labs along the Red Sea, between the African continent and the Arabian Peninsula, the artists documented coral reefs, jellyfish, and other deep-sea life, alongside the swirling clouds of vivid pigments released underwater. They were captured through advanced underwater photography while the artists scuba dived.
Deep beneath the ocean’s surface lies an unseen world, largely unexplored and accessible only through advanced technology. The work suggests that the fascination with nature’s hidden worlds is inseparable from an awareness of their vulnerability.
Taiyo Onorato & Nico Krebs succeeded in creating photographic works that probe the boundaries between reality and fiction. With wit and precision, Onorato & Krebs turn the ocean into a stage where reality and fiction merge.
This series grew from years of close collaboration between the artists and marine scientists, blending exploration with experimentation. Set in research labs along the Red Sea, between the African continent and the Arabian Peninsula, the artists documented coral reefs, jellyfish, and other deep-sea life, alongside the swirling clouds of vivid pigments released underwater. They were captured through advanced underwater photography while the artists scuba dived.
Deep beneath the ocean’s surface lies an unseen world, largely unexplored and accessible only through advanced technology. The work suggests that the fascination with nature’s hidden worlds is inseparable from an awareness of their vulnerability.
Taiyo Onorato & Nico Krebs succeeded in creating photographic works that probe the boundaries between reality and fiction. With wit and precision, Onorato & Krebs turn the ocean into a stage where reality and fiction merge.
Taiyo Onorato & Nico Krebs (both b. 1979, Switzerland) have worked together since meeting at Zürich University of the Arts in the early 2000s. Their collaboration moves between photography, film, sculpture, and installation, but the real subject is always the instability of images. They build sets, distort negatives, invent cameras, and stage interventions that make the familiar slip into fiction.
In The Great Unreal (2005–09), they drove across the United States photographing landscapes that were never quite landscapes: mountains reshaped with cardboard, highways interrupted by smoke and mirrors. Later, in Continental Drift and Eurasia, they turned their lens eastward, working with Soviet-era cameras, improvised props, and long stretches of road to test how geography itself can be staged. Their most recent project, Water Column (2023), made with marine scientists, plunged into the ocean’s depths. Coral reefs, submersibles, and pigment clouds appear as both scientific records and hallucinations—images that could be evidence, or dreams.
What runs through all these works is a refusal to take the photograph at face value. They insist on showing its seams—the glue, the plywood, the trick of light—while at the same time embracing its power to invent. The result is a practice that sits between experiment and fable, research and spectacle.
Onorato & Krebs have exhibited internationally, with solo shows at MoMA PS1 (New York), FOAM (Amsterdam), Fotomuseum Winterthur, Kunsthalle Mainz, Swiss Institute New York, and Le Bal (Paris). Their artist books, including The Great Unreal (2009), Continental Drift (2017), and Water Column (2023), are conceived as autonomous works, each extending their projects into the space of print. Their awards include the FOAM Paul Huf Award (2013), the Swiss Design Award (2011), and multiple prizes for the Most Beautiful Swiss Books; in 2017 they were shortlisted for the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize.
Since 2023, both artists have also pursued individual projects, but their joint work remains a benchmark for how photography can be both evidence and invention—documenting the world while reminding us that every image carries a fiction.
Taiyo Onorato & Nico Krebs (both b. 1979, Switzerland) have worked together since meeting at Zürich University of the Arts in the early 2000s. Their collaboration moves between photography, film, sculpture, and installation, but the real subject is always the instability of images. They build sets, distort negatives, invent cameras, and stage interventions that make the familiar slip into fiction.
In The Great Unreal (2005–09), they drove across the United States photographing landscapes that were never quite landscapes: mountains reshaped with cardboard, highways interrupted by smoke and mirrors. Later, in Continental Drift and Eurasia, they turned their lens eastward, working with Soviet-era cameras, improvised props, and long stretches of road to test how geography itself can be staged. Their most recent project, Water Column (2023), made with marine scientists, plunged into the ocean’s depths. Coral reefs, submersibles, and pigment clouds appear as both scientific records and hallucinations—images that could be evidence, or dreams.
What runs through all these works is a refusal to take the photograph at face value. They insist on showing its seams—the glue, the plywood, the trick of light—while at the same time embracing its power to invent. The result is a practice that sits between experiment and fable, research and spectacle.
Onorato & Krebs have exhibited internationally, with solo shows at MoMA PS1 (New York), FOAM (Amsterdam), Fotomuseum Winterthur, Kunsthalle Mainz, Swiss Institute New York, and Le Bal (Paris). Their artist books, including The Great Unreal (2009), Continental Drift (2017), and Water Column (2023), are conceived as autonomous works, each extending their projects into the space of print. Their awards include the FOAM Paul Huf Award (2013), the Swiss Design Award (2011), and multiple prizes for the Most Beautiful Swiss Books; in 2017 they were shortlisted for the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize.
Since 2023, both artists have also pursued individual projects, but their joint work remains a benchmark for how photography can be both evidence and invention—documenting the world while reminding us that every image carries a fiction.
Taiyo Onorato & Nico Krebs (both b. 1979, Switzerland) have worked together since meeting at Zürich University of the Arts in the early 2000s. Their collaboration moves between photography, film, sculpture, and installation, but the real subject is always the instability of images. They build sets, distort negatives, invent cameras, and stage interventions that make the familiar slip into fiction.
In The Great Unreal (2005–09), they drove across the United States photographing landscapes that were never quite landscapes: mountains reshaped with cardboard, highways interrupted by smoke and mirrors. Later, in Continental Drift and Eurasia, they turned their lens eastward, working with Soviet-era cameras, improvised props, and long stretches of road to test how geography itself can be staged. Their most recent project, Water Column (2023), made with marine scientists, plunged into the ocean’s depths. Coral reefs, submersibles, and pigment clouds appear as both scientific records and hallucinations—images that could be evidence, or dreams.
What runs through all these works is a refusal to take the photograph at face value. They insist on showing its seams—the glue, the plywood, the trick of light—while at the same time embracing its power to invent. The result is a practice that sits between experiment and fable, research and spectacle.
Onorato & Krebs have exhibited internationally, with solo shows at MoMA PS1 (New York), FOAM (Amsterdam), Fotomuseum Winterthur, Kunsthalle Mainz, Swiss Institute New York, and Le Bal (Paris). Their artist books, including The Great Unreal (2009), Continental Drift (2017), and Water Column (2023), are conceived as autonomous works, each extending their projects into the space of print. Their awards include the FOAM Paul Huf Award (2013), the Swiss Design Award (2011), and multiple prizes for the Most Beautiful Swiss Books; in 2017 they were shortlisted for the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize.
Since 2023, both artists have also pursued individual projects, but their joint work remains a benchmark for how photography can be both evidence and invention—documenting the world while reminding us that every image carries a fiction.
See You at SEEEU!
Organizer:
Supported by:
European Union
seeeu@koi.lt
Europe Photo Month Tokyo
Oct 23 - Nov 23 2025
See You at SEEEU!
Organizer:
Supported by:
European Union
See You at SEEEU!
Organizer:
Supported by:
European Union