Art Metropole

#15523

dreams of a place we have lived

Artist

Lisa Klapstock

Date

2023

Publisher

Something to think about

Format

Artists' Books

ISBN

9781778284717

Size

28.5 × 42.5 × 2.3 cm

Length

150 pp

Genre

Photography, Canadian

Lisa Klapstock’s artist’s book, dreams of a place we have lived, comprises intimate landscape portraits made in an Ontario forest. There are two kinds of pictures – unpopulated scenes, and those inhabited by various solitary female characters. Standing, sitting, or lying down, backs to the camera or faces averted, the women are engaged in something not immediately comprehensible. It gradually becomes clear that through their interactive postures, and their dress, the women are seeking communion with Nature. Scenes move between seasons and meteorological conditions in a non-linear way, with the same characters appearing in different landscapes over time, sometimes doing inexplicable things. This contributes to the enchanted quality of the narrative

The characters are Klapstock herself, both subject and photographer. Alone in the forest, with boxes of clothing and wigs, and her photography equipment, she dressed and undressed at each location, choosing outfits to resonate with the environment. We don’t typically dress up for Nature. In Klapstock’s photographs, dressing up is a kind of ritual, and a performative engagement with Nature.

As the natural world continues to disappear, Nature has become less something to fear, and more something to feel nostalgia for; to remember in a fragmentary way, like a dream.

Printed by Narayana Press DK
Cloth-bound