Open Theme nominee

This series questions the place of Man on planet Earth and his relationship with Nature. Man builds for his own peculiar reasons. Man abandons for other peculiar reasons. Nature does not care about those reasons. But one thing is for sure, She is disturbed in her evolution. When Man leaves, She comes back and does not do things by halves, She takes back everything.
Far from being negative or pessimistic, and at a time where Man’s domination on Nature has never been this extreme, she aims to wake consciousness.
In her inexorable progression, She starts infiltrating the insides of a Montenegrin castle (Picture 1). Then, She grows in a Cuban theater (2) before filling up all the space of an Italian Church (3).
After that, She guzzles the cross of a Belgian monastery (4) or given more time, imprisons a Taiwanese mansion with her strong roots (5).
The next step? Collapse and burial.
What will then be left of what Man has built? Nothing. A souvenir. A shot that a curious adventurer would have taken there some years before.
When Nature and Time ally against Man, what will be left of our civilization?

Jonk travels the world looking for abandoned places.
Today, he has visited more than one thousands of them in more than forty countries on four continents.
With time, his interest has focused on what appeared to him to be the strongest in this vast subject of abandonment: Nature taking over. It is poetic, even magic, to see this Nature retaking what used to be hers, reintegrating through broken windows, cracks on the walls, spaces built by Man and then neglected, until sometimes guzzling them up entirely.
In March 2018, he released the book Naturalia on the topic and currently works on volume II.
In June 2018, he quits his job in the finance to fully dedicate himself to this project.
Since, two other books have been released and his work has been featured in prestigious paper publications (Der Spiegel, Corriere della Sera…) as well as on prestigious web platforms (National Geographic, Smithsonian, ArchDaily, AD, Lonely Planet…). It has been part of many group shows across the world (Paris, Rome, Athens, Budapest, Los Angeles, Palm Springs, Seoul, Tokyo…) as well as several solo shows in Paris.
Several personal exhibitions of Naturalia are planned for 2019 and 2020.