Arnolt Smead
Evergreen
2025 It's Not Easy Being Green
Arnolt Smead
Medium:
Photograph
Displayed:
Across the UK and Brazil 7 Oct - 10 Nov
Artwork Description:
Evergreen is a visual meditation on the interplay between human constructs and the natural world, captured on the Greek island of Kefalonia. At its centre stands a rusting shipping container, emblazoned with the word ‘Evergreen’, an emblem of global commerce and the carbon footprint of our modern world. Sun-scorched weeds have started to creep up its base, slowly reclaiming the structure.
Through the juxtaposition of the organic and the industrial, Evergreen becomes a reflection on our collective impact. It is a call to reexamine our relationship with nature, reminding us that we are not separate from the landscapes we alter, but irrevocably intertwined. It asks us to consider not just what we build, but what we leave behind, and how the natural world persists, adapts and continues long after our traces begin to fade.
Artist's Comment:
The climate conversation can feel overwhelming, but I think small moments matter. A single image won’t fix anything, but it can shift perspective - and that’s something I try to hold onto in my work.
Bio:
Arnolt Smead (b.1993, Antwerp, Belgium) is a Belgian photographer and journalist based in London, whose work for publications such as i-D, Wallpaper and L’Officiel spans fashion, design, travel, and documentary. Known for his ability to move fluidly between disciplines, he photographs people and places with a commitment to storytelling that is both intimate and expansive. His images resist spectacle and dwell in stillness, evoking themes of longing, memory and resistance. Across his global travels, Smead searches for cultural depth and seeks to uncover what endures beneath the surface: the residue of ambition, the erosion of time, and beauty that is not always obvious or harmonious. It can be fractured, unsettling, even ironic, but it is always revealing.
