Living off the grid

There’s no running water, no central heating – and certainly no supermarket for as far as the eye can see. These are the families who have chosen to turn their backs on the breakneck speed of modern life to become at one with nature, free from the rat race.

Leaving city life for mountain ranges including the Carpathians and The Pyrenees, they pride themselves on living ‘off the grid’ without access to any of the mod-cons that the 21st Century may have to offer.

French photographer Antoine Bruy has spent years travelling across Europe capturing men, women and children who have joined the so-called ‘back-to-land’ movement on their very own organic farms.

He said: ‘Since 2010, I travelled throughout Europe to meet men and women who made the radical choice to live away from cities, willing to abandon their lifestyle based on performance, efficiency and consumption.

‘The people and places depicted in my pictures display various fates which I think, should not only be seen at a political level, but more importantly as daily and immediate experiences.

He said: ‘I give them a hand for different kind of tasks, like growing vegetables, fixing a roof, building a straw bale house or taking care of animals if they have some.

‘This time allows me, somehow, to connect to the land, understand the way it works, and know the people I’m living with.

‘This documentary project is an attempt to make a kind of contemporary tale and to give back a little bit of magic to our modern civilization.’

Among the people he met was a German called Peter who has been living in Ramounat in The Pyrenees for the last 30 years.

He moved there with his wife and children, but they left decades ago, it was reported by Feature Shoot.

Others included Sabine, a teacher in philosophy and literature who now raises cows with her husband Christian.

He has posted a collection of his images entitled Scrublands to the FotoFund website where he has launched a crowd-funding campaign to raise money to continue his project in America.

‘I plan to come in the USA to make photographs of people who retreat in remote places in the Appalachian mountains,’ Mr Bruy said.

‘America can indeed be considered as the birthplace of these “back-to-the-land” movements.’

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