It probably doesn’t come as a surprise to you that I’m really into landscapes. My chosen field of study alone speaks heaps about this interest of mine. Geography and landscape ecology is all about the mountains and the forests and the deserts.
And I’ve tried to choose a favorite landscape. You know, make a list. Because, I have traveled a great deal and I’ve seen many landscapes and I should be able to pick a favorite. The problem is, I can’t.
People ask me why I chose to go to Burkina Faso to do fieldwork. Well, the obvious reason was that that’s where the project I wanted to do happened to be. But there’s more. I like deserts. The harshness, the living on the margin of what is possible. The space. The subtlety in color.
For the same reason, I like mountains. In deserts, the feeling of space tends to come from the flatness, and being able to see so far. In alpine landscapes, the obvious space-creators are the mountains themselves. The mountains can be almost anywhere, but the Andean Altiplano and the Swedish-Norwegian mountain chain will always have special places in my heart.
A similar harshness can be found along certain coastlines. Like the bare bedrock on the Swedish west coast, or in northern Scotland, or the misty, windswept beaches and cliffs from British Columbia all the way down to northern California. And the Stockholm archipelago will always make my heart tick a little extra.
And then again, there is the richness and depth of colors in the rain forests. I prefer the temperate, maybe because I feel more at home among conifers, but the tropical is also almost hypnotizing, especially during butterfly season.
A golden wheat field among lakes and patches of forest in a mid-Swedish or -Finnish landscape will always make me think of happy childhood summers, and the dry smells of the Mediterranean!
You see! I can’t choose. I’m hopelessly in love and I’m serious poly-amorous when it comes to landscapes.
One of the few landscapes that I don’t feel anything special for, however, is the tropical beach. You know, the one that we’ve all been programmed to associate with paradise: white sand, palm trees, turquoise water and cocktails with colorful umbrellas. It just doesn’t speak to me. Nothing happens. It’s so easy. So comfortable. Unchallenging. Simple.
I’m on the beach and I don’t feel inspired. It’s kind of dull, really, in a sort of relaxing way.
Katja Malmborg 