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[Intro music]
[A New Day]
Of course, we go on today live from the program “A New Day”
which includes artistic, cultural, social and entertainment news.
Our next “stop” is artistic by excellence
Let me welcome now Lara Zankoul
Artistic Photographer. Welcome Lara
Thank you for having me on the show today
You are most welcome
Lara you are an artist photographer however you do not let your photos go unnoticed
you plan, prepare and select what you want to convey and you make an exhibition with your photos.
We will be talking today about your 2nd solo exhibition at Ayyam gallery.
Tell us first about the idea and about this talent and how you developed it into photographs and exhibition.
First of all, this is my 2nd solo show in Ayyam gallery in Lebanon
the show is entitled the "Unseen", referring to what the eye can’t see.
and the idea behind it is to reveal slowly throughout the pictures
the hidden aspects of things in society and in people on a personal level
because there always exists a duality in life:
on the one hand we have "appearances" or what people show,
and on the other hand we have "hidden realities” or what people do not show.
The idea behind the series was to show those hidden or unseen aspects.
I used the approach of dividing each photo in 2 parts:
one above the water, and one below it
because I did a comparison with the sea which hides a lot of secrets and is full of mystery.
this also reminds us of the iceberg effect, where we can see a small part on the surface,
whereas the bigger chunk is hidden under the water and is unseen.
Nice..When the artist gets inspired from life, from what she observes
the inspiration starts to flow from deeper things, which are expressed as pictures
Some people express them selves in poetry or words whereas you use photography.
What in your opinion characterizes your photos and what is special about them? Do you just capture pictures or do you try to express something you have in your mind and stage the photo?
Like you said, I do observe my surroundings and analyze life experiences
and I like to photograph intangible things and ideas
which sounds a bit surprising because cameras are meant to document tangible things.
I use symbols and include have some kind of mystery in my work
to make the viewer stop and try to decipher the codes and messages,
and self reflect and think deeper than the superficial things that we see.
Lara, Bruno prepared the photos and we will see them now
The photos that you will see are the photos that have been shown in Ayyam for the exhibition.
So can you explain…I wish we kept the first photo, but we can talk about this one, how did you create this mix?
I’d like to note that these pictures where not manipulated on Photoshop
I wanted to create them for real so I asked a studio to build a giant water tank
that we designed as a room, as we will see in the next pictures
Oh I thought it was Photoshopped!
No it isn’t Photoshopped.
we filled half of the tank with water and there was a frontal glass through which I took the photographs
and the models went inside and sat in the water.
You can see here the water tank was designed as a room, I added accessories to make it look more real
Did you put the models in water so they won’t get claustrophobic?
The models actually got cold because the water was really cold! [laughs]
This picture in specific represents the non-human side present in people sometimes..
Like I mentioned previously, what's above the water shows the superficial and apparent things
here I gave a positive image of humanity, and showed that deep inside we remain humans (not animals)
This is a really nice picture we are seeing, was it all photographed in a studio?
Yes all was done in the studio
in the exhibition, we are projecting the behind the scenes video to show how the photos were taken
In this picture we see that there is no one on the surface
yet under the water there is a person who is suffocating.
This represents people whose voice is never heard, or people whose presence we don't feel or notice,
while in fact, there are suffocating from the inside.
As a note, the chandelier is moving to one side, did you work on this aspect as well?
Actually when the model dived down in the water she accidentally pushed it with her foot and lead it to move this way
so it wasn't intentional but it added a certain edge to the photo
It came out really nice, what about this photo?
This photo can be interpreted in many ways,
we observe on the outside a boat floating on the water, then we discover that the boat is not floating but lying on a cupboard
and we notice that this boat is not real it is just another accessory used to decorate a home.
Nice…Do you have the idea in mind before the photo-shoot or do you come up with ideas spontaneously?
Almost everything is planned before hand, I mean…
The project took a long period of time to be implemented,
I spent many months planning everything…
the cloths, props, models, especially that I prepare almost everything on my own.
This is so nice…you made them wear red..
Here we can see that the 2 women are smiling at each other in appearance but there is one cutting the other's dress from below.
[sighs in reflection]
[laughs]
all these photos stem from real life experiences.
wow… the last one is so expressive, unbelievable!
Thank you ☺
In this one, the girl's eyes are speaking but under the water her lips are sealed by the star fish.
it is only enough that her eyes speak..[laughs]
This represents many things about women's right, when her voice is not heard
or even when a women is not even allowed to express herself or give her own opinion.
True...
This one is about lies. As much as we try to hide lies under the water
they end up re-appearing in a stronger way
in this photo in particular, why did you choose to use balloons as lies?
How did you make a link between lies and those balloons that the girl is trying to hide underwater?
I wanted to use a symbol or something that doesn't float..sorry I mean that doesn’t SINK
it had to be something that floats so I went for balloons
And later on I was told that this metaphor of holding balloons underwater is used in therapy to show that you can't push problems down
because they become overwhelming and will bounce back in a stronger way, so it's not good to repress negativity, better express it
Actually a lot of my concepts relate to psychology
This one summarizes life in general, and its ups and downs
in times we lead our life, in other times we are lead by others.
Great artistic piece! How much time did it take you to have all these models working above and under the water?
In this one, I took 2 pictures and merged them together because the water tank wasn't that big,
I couldn't take it as one shot but it took a lot of work to get photographed
the models' poses weren't easy to perform, especially in cold water.
the whole experience was very fun and surreal, having people in a giant water tank in water isn't very common
Indeed, I am now seeing the photos and thinking how surreal this is!
So I can imagine how surreal and fun it was during the photoshoot itself.
Here, they seem very sophisticated and fancy above water
and under it, their cloths are torn and their house is broken
this visualizes the superficiality and love for appearance that exist in some people
The color of the water here is not transparent but more live navy blue, why so?
The water is actually less opaque and darker here
I always use colors to re-inforce the message conveyed
the lower part here is darker and obscure, that's why it looks navy blue
and above the water is all golden, bright and shiny, to re-inforce the contrast.
What about this one?
This girl is really scared but there is nothing so scary above the water
yet under the water we see baby sharks attacking her
and those sharks exist in her own imagination just like the fears that exist in our mind and handicap us
Did you play on the light or did you change the colors of the walls from one photo to another? We notice here that the walls are darker, so did you paint them or was it all about lighting techniques?
Yes I played a lot with the light. I had experts who assisted me with lighting
This photo in specific required darker light, to re-inforce the concept of fear
I usually use the lighting, the composition and the colors to express messages visually
In photography, we do not use words, we use these visual aspects to express a message
An artist's work is like his own baby, taking into consideration the amount of work put in each piece
Knowing that you are presenting many works, are there specific photos that you favor over others?
I do prefer some works over others, probably the topics that relate to me personally, or have happened with me
and some photos mean less than other, it depends on the level of emotion put into each work
How much time does it take you to finish every photo?
It is obvious that it took a lot of hard work: going to the studio, changing decors and models...
How much time does each photo took?
In this project, I photographed all images in one day and a half, because I rented a studio
Its the planning and preparation that takes most time
It took me months to plan and come up with all the concepts
and gather all props and accessories, I brought the chandeliers, the chairs, etc.
everything had to be thought of before hand, I even bought a fish for the shoot
So it took 3 to 4 months of preparation, 1 day and a half of photo-shooting, the shoot was very saturated
and then the photo selection process and color correction and editing on Photoshop took around 2 months
So it took around...6 months to finish it all, including all steps
Lara, you are presenting a show for the second time
how does this second show differ from the first, knowing that a person matures and learns over time
What progress did you make in this work in particular?
I felt this exhibition had more impact on people.
The previous show was my very first, and I showed a series that I had presented to a competition by Ayyam
and that series has brought me to exhibit with Ayyam, after I was an award recipient in the competition (4rth prize)
In this second exhibition, The Unseen, I felt that my work has matured and the content was more powerful and engaged
Even though I kept the same spirit of my previous works, I kept the same coloring style and the square format
However the content has evolved over time to become stronger on the viewer
I would like to congratulate you and I think all who watched the show congratulate you as well
because you did something really nice, and innovative and you worked *** it
and most importantly you succeeded in communicating your message and idea
sometimes artists work hard to communicate a certain message but the idea is not always grasped by the audience
but you worked hard and managed to convey your message effectively
Thank you so much
This exhibition is now showing at Ayyam Gallery
In deed, it is in Ayyam Gallery, near hotel Monroe in Beirut, and the show is staying until 30 March
I invite every person to pass by and check it out to add a dash of art to their day
Thank you for being with us today, Lara Zankoul, conceptual photographer
best of luck and hopefully we will meet you again for a third exhibition
Thank you very much
Subtitles by the Amara.org community