Desert and Steel Tower, Conflict and Harmony in Kuwait

Photographer Yoon Jeongvin went in search of the steel towers standing in the Kuwaiti desert. Their monument-like presence in a harsh natural landscape becomes a way to explore the conflict and harmony between humans and nature.

Words & Photos Yoon Jeongvin

When I was posted to Kuwait for a year, I first came face to face with steel towers rising in the middle of the barren desert. Against the endless expanse of sand, they seemed like nothing more than structures from an industrial site. But as time passed, I came to realize that they formed a unique landscape created by the desert and humankind together. The towers symbolize human technological power, yet they also felt like vivid evidence of how people leave their footprints on nature, even in the harshest environments. That experience gave me great inspiration. Years later, with support from the 2023 Fujifilm GFX Grant Award, I had the chance to visit Kuwait again. Returning to places I had only briefly photographed in the past, I was able to explore the stories they held in greater depth.
The Kuwaiti desert is a place that reveals everything without concealment. Land worn shapeless by the wind, traces of dead animals, and heaps of abandoned trash expose the desert’s barrenness and its candor. Within that setting, the steel towers seem to be the clearest symbol of human presence. The desert and the towers appear to be opposites, yet in a strange way they blend together. Like artificial monuments set down in nature, the towers stand in the arid environment. Herds of camels passing between them, discarded car parts, and the endless sky stretching above seem to speak ceaselessly, as if past and present coexisted.

The towers are more than industrial structures. They symbolize human tenacity and survival while revealing the complicated relationship between nature and the man-made. I wanted to show that this landscape is a crossroads where traces of humanity meet the force of nature. This time, I did not stay only around the towers. I followed the roads that run alongside them, searching for new scenery. Those roads were shaped by the placement of the structures, and they were also marks left by humans and nature together. In places I had been forced to pass by on my first visit, I found landscapes that now felt new. Worn-out machine parts strewn beneath the towers, small plants growing out of the trash, and the desert sunset sinking behind the steel frames all enriched the story of this place. The whole process was not simply about photographing towers. It was an attempt to reinterpret and convey the relationship between the towers and the desert.

The photographs from this project have been exhibited in Tokyo and Osaka, Japan, and in Seoul, Korea. Through landscapes formed by the vast nature of the desert and the towers that assert their presence within it, I wanted to pose questions to viewers about the relationship between humans and nature. I hoped to remind them once more that the spaces of the world we live in do not exist for no reason, but each holds its own story.