The Dutch sculptor and photographer Scarlett Hooft Graafland travels to the planet’s most untouched landscapes to create and capture het unexpected, surrealist images. Through a mix of careful choreography and intricate sculpture, not to mention some seriously serendipitous timing (she calls the pieces “interventions”), Graafland has documented, among other scenes, an igloo she helped to make entirely from lemonade –and another she wrapped in neon twine – in the Arctic plains of northern Canada, and, in Bolivia’s Salar de Uyuni salt flat, a vividly colored carpet made from dried spices laid atop the land. The images, she says, are as much about conservation as they are inspiration. “My response to climate change is a visual one”, says Graafland, who ensures that her work leave no waste – or trace – on the land. “I still hope the human race will survive, so I try to grasp some of the grim background, but add some lightness as well.” (New York Times Magazine)

2. Blue Reindeer in Herd, Jotunheimen Mountains, 2010. A reindeer made out of blue garbage bags is standing in between a herd of 2500 reindeer. The herd is running around in circles.

My White Knight, 2011: A pile of salt explodes from the back of a truck. Dynamite is regularly used in the mining industry and can be easily bought on the streets of La Paz.

This 33-year-old Dutch photographer creates work in some of the most inhospitable spots on Earth, as is testified by the ten spectacular photographs in het show at London’s Michael Hoppen gallery, opening on April the 19 – her first solo British exhibition. The series was shot over three trips to southern Bolivia since 2004. There, she captured the kind of limitless landscapes that even the most mach traveller would think twice before tackling.

Every image is faultlessly composed, so that expanses of land and water play against azure skies like weighted bands of colour in an abstract painting. Incredibly, though, Graafland doesn’t tinker with her images on a computer. 'I like the fact that my landscapes look as though they have been manipulated,' she says. 'But they’re real.' (The Daily Telegraph)