OPENING
Rencontres géosensibles
Geosensitive Encounters
After her presentation of photosensitive prints made from natural atmospheric pigments and carbon, plastic or other residues collected in the filters of the Pic du Midi de Brigorre observatory in France, Laure Winants returns to ODRADEK to exhibit her new, equally striking new works.
This time, the artist, always passionate about scientific research, reveals multi-temporal colour prisms. Based for several months on the Arctic, she went at sea with researchers either to record the sound emissions of icebergs and their tremors, or to probe the ice pack. The photographs she took experiment with the decomposition of light on samples taken from the ice. Unexpectedly, the result is a composition of photos with the synthesis of light frozen in the ice.
This exhibition invites us to participate and share in these luminous encounters, as Laure Winants gives us access to her lens’s encounters with millennia-old substance that is still developing. This ingenious photographer, with a keen ear and a keen eye, has succeeded in taming a little cosmic energy.
Translation Renaat Beheydt
Laure Winants sets up her artist’s studio in the heart of the Arctic ice pack. Embarked for four months on a po- lar expedition, she joined a team of mul- tidisciplinary 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. The artist creates a dialogue between art, natural science and technology.
The experiments are nume- rous: capturing the composition of light, capturing the acoustic inflections of icebergs, printing the chemical composition of water, and so on. Several boreholes have been drilled to take samples of permafrost, glaciers and sea ice, providing insights that take us beyond our own humanity. The data from these time capsules not only shed light on million-year-old past, but also create new narratives and regenerate our imaginations.
This geosensitive encounter has given rise to several lines of research, the first of which is Sensing Landscape, an experimental series exploring the phenomena of light and color in the Arctic. Presented for the first time this fall, these works are prints of photograms onto which ice cut-outs captured on site have been affixed. Polarized light on the material reveals 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 lands- cape, Laure Winants reveals a universe seen through the prism of nature itself, where ice and light filter our vision.
