500m Above Reality

500m Above Reality
Summer of 2019, Spain

500m Above Reality is a photographic journey that began in the summer of 2019 as the artist traveled through the northern and southern landscapes of Spain. The project was conceived atop a mountaintop in the Basque Country, at 547 meters above sea level. Surrounded by horses, with no water and the last of the oranges in hand and the shimmering sea in the background, the distant silhouette of France began to feel like a mirage. At that height, the world seemed both closer and farther away, suspended between reality and something dreamlike.

In the south, the landscape shifted dramatically—white-stone mountains, red soil, and fields scorched by the unrelenting sun. Yet, even in this harsh environment, the horizon carried an air of wonder. Everywhere she looked, the scenery held a quiet, almost magical quality, as though every view was imbued with a secret waiting to be discovered.

The emphasis of 500m Above Reality is on the magic that unfolds when we step outside our everyday lives and into the unfamiliar. The smallest scenes, when viewed through the lens of travel and exploration, become deeply enchanting. Yet beneath the surface of beauty, the artist also captured a subtle sense of continental dread—the feeling of being disconnected, both physically and emotionally, from the world around her. This tension is reflected in the images, which preserve the pink haze of the landscape and the dreamlike quality that defined her time in Spain.

500m Above Reality is an attempt to hold onto that surreal feeling of being caught between worlds, of seeing the extraordinary in the ordinary, and of preserving the quiet unease that lingers in a place far from home.

500m Above Reality by Liina Salonen
2019, Spain

Exhibited:
Uba ja Humal, Tallinn, 2019