Laure
Winants
Visualising the invisible drivers of climate change – Atmospheric gases and micro-particles; carbon dioxide, methane and black carbon.
Laure Winants’ ALBEDO project is based on long-term research into natural elements, and offers an experimental photographic study of the traces left by climate fluctuations and dynamics. To sense these markers of change, the artist has surrounded herself with a multidisciplinary team whose approaches are centred on climatology, and their measurement tools – Field Forecasting, Data and Sensing Instrumentation. She has developed an experimental device that is transported with each expedition and takes its place almost performatively in the landscape, the image being constructed with the physical engagement of the territory. The photographic traces of the expedition are accompanied by samples of eroded material taken from the print site, as well as location data. During the expedition, the material collected becomes a geographical trace as well as a pigment base in the photosensitive solution. Insitu printing then takes all the elements into account – solar radiation, atmospheric gases and minerals.
Geosensitive Encounters
Laure Winants set up her artist’s studio in the heart of the Arctic ice pack. Embarked on a four-month polar expedition, she joined a team of multidisciplinary researchers to understand the evolution of this vast territory, where man is only a tiny part of life. Immersed in this white desert, she uses techniques developed specifically to capture the optical and luminous phenomena unique to the region. Using environmental sensors, the interaction of matter itself has become the creator of the work, putting human intervention to one side. Laure Winants makes this data tangible and emotionally perceptible, highlighting the interdependence of ecosystems. In this way, the artist creates a dialogue between art, the natural sciences and technology.
The experiments are numerous: capturing the composition of light, capturing the acoustic inflections of icebergs, printing the chemical composition of water… A number of boreholes have been drilled to take samples of permafrost, glaciers and sea ice, providing insights that will take us beyond our own humanity. The data from these time capsules sheds light on a past 300 million years old, but also sketches out new narratives and regenerates our imaginations.
This geosensitive encounter has given rise to several lines of research, including an experimental series exploring the phenomena of light and colour in the Arctic. Presented for the first time this autumn, these works are prints of photograms onto which have been affixed cut-outs of ice captured on site. The polarised light on the material shows us the composition of the cut-out. It reveals the structure of the crystals, but leaves a shadow over certain elements that have been present for millions of years. By listening to the fragility of this constantly changing polar landscape, Laure Winants reveals a universe seen through the prism of nature itself, where ice and light filter our vision.
