Issue 99: Trailblazers
This issue features the work of several pioneers, innovators and trailblazers – artists and curators that are building their own platforms and pushing the boundaries of their own practices. https://shop.aestheticamagazine.com
Features:
- Concealed Topographies: Chirag Jindal is an artist and surveyor working at the intersection of documentary journalism, new media art and contemporary cartography. His Into the Underworld / NgāMahi Rarowhenua series utilises Light Detection and Ranging technology to map Auckland’s subterranean landscapes carved out by lava.
- Building Communities: The Beazley Designs of the Year returns, with ground-breaking projects that show how architects are turning to locale-responsive methods to deal with major social and environmental issues.
- Laying the Foundations: Think of a great street photographer: who springs to mind? Gulnara Samoilova is determined to spotlight women photographers, moving from an Instagram account to an international group exhibition, and now, to an eye-opening new publication with Prestel.
- Updating the Records: MoMA dismantles the narrative of photographic history, focusing on an understudied chapter from the heart of São Paulo in the mid-20thcentury: the Foto-Cine Clube Bandeirante.
Image Features:
- Alexis Pichot re-establishes viewers with a sense of wonder and curiosity, tapping into the supremacy of theorganicworld and its astrological cycles. The Séléné series makes reference to Greek mythology, specifically Selene (derived from “selas” meaning “bright”), who was a goddess of the full moon, celebrated with each lunar cycle.
- Laura Bonnefous experiments with unique visual codes, where colour can be a source of abstraction, inspiration and calm simultaneously. Rolled paint, spilt ink, socks and curtains are manifestations of play, allure and experimentation.
- Evan Sheehan, our cover photographer, has a background in video and design – skills and experience deftly called upon in the planning and production of bold still images. These photographs – which seem at once spontaneous and deeply choreographed – call upon eye-popping primary colours and dynamic environments.
- Malick Kebe, one of Abidjan’s rising talents, has a strong understanding of shape, colour and concept, producing evocative storytelling through minimal subjects and limited production.
- Scintillating landscapes feature closely cropped structures, satisfying angles and large, open bodies of water stretching outwards towards the horizon. Salva López’s images provide a personal take on recognisable buildings, looking for what he defines as “global visual harmony.”
- Brooke DiDonato’s work sits within a contemporary reading of The Uncanny in photography: images which are at once unsettling and alluring, set within familiar domestic locations.