There is something in the air in Prince Albert, South Africa

The very own deserted Cosmos»Creaking Groaning Folding Rock. continental lift, tilt and breakup – the beginning of the end for the great continent Gondwana. New mountains form – Swartberge, Witteberge. Extremely old Archaen seabed, layer upon layer of river and lake shoved upright – black, brown, pink, rippled rock ridges and walls marching across torn and devastated landscapes. Eroding floods, mud laden escaping waters tearing across the old glacier produced Dwyka Karoo. Trapping, entombing survivors of the great Permian-Triassic green death, to add another layer to the richest fossil beds in the world. Volcanic devastation and lava flows complete the Karoo rock strata. Our ancient ancestors, leathery brown, hunting and gathering, entering the Karoo with its good years and its bad, its wet and its dry. Eyes across the endless rock, coarse bush, occasional grass and the mighty herds of antelope. Wandering far and wide, populating the world.« The young Dutch photographer Cuny Jansen was Thomas Struth’s assistant; she is living in Amsterdam once more and has just had a baby daughter (2007) after a six month-long sojourn in South Africa, taking photographs of a very own deserted cosmos and processing them in a wonderful, beautifully printed and elaborately designed book.