FT WEEKEND PRESENTS ‘LANDSCAPES OF THE MIND: TWO VISIONS OF A SHAPESHIFTING PLANET’

In this online panel presented by the FT Weekend Magazine, artists Dafna Talmor and Chrystel Lebas will discuss their practice and varying approaches to engaging with representations of landscape with curator William A. Ewing.

Talmor will be focusing on her ongoing Constructed Landscapes series – produced by collaging and reconfiguring negatives to create imaginary spaces rooted in reality – and Lebas will be reflecting on her photographic and moving image work looking at how landscapes contain psychological significance in relation to visually concealed histories.

 

Watch the panel

Biographies:

Chrystel Lebas is interested in encouraging a wider understanding of the complex encounter between humankind and nature. She employs photography and the moving image to explore and reveal histories concealed in landscapes, investigating a variety of sites to which she returns over extended periods of time during key moments of change. Her works highlight the complexity of these places, observing natural phenomena occurring at a specific time and place. In her works, she has been exploring landscapes during the twilight hours, using long exposures to reveal the invisible and the slow colour shift during the crepuscular. She produced large and immersive panoramic images in forests and wildernesses considering notions of the sublime and our relationship to nature. In her most recent series, Re-visiting (2011-), Lebas has worked in collaboration with the Natural History Museum in London, and funded by The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation London, retracing the steps of Sir Edward James Salisbury (1886-1978), a key British ecologist, resulting in a major solo exhibition at Huis Marseille Museum for Photography Amsterdam (2016-17) with the accompanying publication ‘Field Studies: Walking through Landscapes and Archives’ winner of the Best Dutch book design and the Kraszna-Krausz Foundation Best Photography Book 2018. Born in France, Chrystel Lebas currently lives and works in London. A graduate from the Royal College of Art, her photographs and films have been widely exhibited.

Dafna Talmor is an artist and lecturer based in London with work included in public collections such as the Victoria and Albert Museum and Deutsche Bank. Featured in publications such as Post-Photography: The Artist with a Camera, the FT Weekend Magazine, 1000 Words, Elephant and Camera Austria, Talmor’s recent solo shows include Straight Lines are a Human Invention at Sid Motion Gallery and Constructed Landscapes at TOBE Gallery. Recent group shows include Her Nature: Women Photographing Landscape, Flowers Gallery and …on making, National Museum Gdansk. Shortlisted for the BNL BNP Paribas Award, Talmor is the recipient of Arts Council England Grants for the Arts Awards, the Breathing SPACE Bursary and Photofusion Select Bursary Award. Talmor is taking part in a group presentation with Sid Motion Gallery on Photo London Digital and an upcoming group show Lay of the Land at Informality Gallery. Her first monograph, Constructed Landscapes, published by Fw:Books is released in October 2020.

Emma Bowkett is Director of Photography at the FT Weekend Magazine. She has curated exhibitions for the Triennale der Photographie Hamburg, Peckham 24 and last year co-curated an exhibition with young Londoners as part of the Create Jobs programme. Emma is a University Associate Lecturer at London College of Communication (LCC).

William A. Ewing has curated the Talks Programme at Photo London for the past four years. He is a curator, author and museum director. His exhibitions have been shown in hundreds of museums worldwide, including the Museum of Modern Art, and the International Center of Photography, New York; the Centre Pompidou, Musée Carnavelet, and Jeu de Paume, Paris; the Serpentine, Barbican, Saatchi and Hayward Galleries, London. His books include Landmark , The Face, Edward Burtysnsky, William Wegman, The Body (all Thames & Hudson); Ray Metzker, Ernst Haas, Leonard Freed (all Steid). He is an Officer of the French Ordre des Arts et Lettres, and has won the RPS’s Outstanding Service to Photography Award.