No Less Than Others I, 2022, Unique
No Less Than Others XI, 2022, Unique
No Less Than Others III, 2022, Unique
No Less Than Others VII, 2022, Unique
No Less Than Others V, 2022, Unique
No Less Than Others XII, 2022, Unique
No Less Than Others VIII, 2022, Unique
No Less Than Others, 2022, Unique
The series NO LESS THAN OTHERS (2022) explores the intersection and interconnection between nature and humanity.
Inspired by the history of photography and the earliest photographic techniques, it point back to the beginning of photography and life on earth. Svetlana Talanova’s images are created by hand, without use of a camera, in the colour darkroom, manipulating only translucent natural materials, light, time and photosensitive paper. Challenging the preconception that the camera photographs an existing world, she decided to remove the camera from the process. The darkroom becomes her camera. She steps inside and becomes part of the mechanism. As Talanova works in complete darkness, some senses are muted and others are intensified. Trading her visual senses for the physical, she edds phisicality to the process, exploring the role of materiality in photography and how a photograph can retain its status as a physical object.
NO LESS THAN OTHERS question whether we meant to live a purely urban life. It considers the importance of reconnecting with nature in a world where such external interactions have been constrained. It considers the essential yet fragile nature of the organic world.
At its roots, the work explores a sense of belonging. Who does nature belong to and what is humanity’s responsibility to the natural world?
NO LESS THAN OTHERS is a tangible translation of the natural world and of light. It explores the organic nature of photography and of the world. Used materials are fresh, alive and share patterns which are repeated in nature, in landscape, in the skins of vegetables and human beings. Through the universality of natural life-forms, the work examines mass consumption, ecology and sustainability.
© Svetlana Talanova. 2021
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