Once bound to nature by slower, more intimate rhythms, humankind now experiences the world largely through windows, screens and images. Jan Pypers’ Diorama series invites us to explore the traces of this rupture — its illusions, its recon-structions and its contemporary representations. At the start of the 20th century, meticulously crafted dioramas in natural history museums served as fragile bridges between the urbanising human and the natural worlds. These miniature, three-dimensional scenes recreated animals in their habitats, offering the viewer an encounter with nature, trapped behind glass. Through ingenious perspective tricks, they gave the sense of seeing miles into the distance from within a single room: mesmerising, clever, immaculate — and entirely artificial.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY JAN PYPERS
TEXT BY IMA TRAUM

Diorama is not simply a photographic series; it is a profound inquiry into the nature of photographic representation itself. Here, photography becomes more than a tool for documentation — it constructs the very sensation of reality’. By manipulating light, shadow, and perspective with masterful precision, Pypers subtly unsettles the viewer’s gaze, shifting perception in unexpected ways. Within these images, strange, almost inexplicable moments emerge from ordinary scenes. Some frames evoke tranquillity, others a faint unease — yet threat never manifests directly. It is within the delicate tension between surface calm and hidden disquiet that Pypers’ distinctive signature resides.