Dafna Talmor — Constructed Landscapes by Fw:Books (released October 2020) 24 x 28 cm / 210 pages (10 gatefolds) / colour/ softcover / Texts by Olga Smith, Shoair Mavlian, Cherry Smyth and interview by Gemma Padley with Dafna Talmor; Design Hans Gremmen
To order copies please visit Fw:Books For distribution please visit Idea Books
Constructed Landscapes, an ongoing project consisting of three volumes, stems from a personal archive of photographs initially shot as mere keepsakes across different locations. Produced by collaging medium format colour negatives, the resulting images are staged landscapes, a conflation combining the ‘real’ and the imaginary. Through this work, specific places initially loaded with personal meaning and political connotations, are transformed into a space of greater universality. Blurring place, memory and time - defying specificity and referring to the transient - the work alludes to idealised and utopian spaces. In dialogue with the history of photography, Constructed Landscapes references Pictorialist processes of combination printing as well as Modernist experiments with the materiality of film. Whilst distinctly holding historical references, the work engages with contemporary discourse on manipulation and the analogue/digital divide. Beyond photographs, the work has expanded to include site-specific vinyl wallpapers and spatial interventions, photograms, studies and photographic sculptures.
The book includes 44 main colour plates from the first two volumes alongside extensive previously unpublished process material such as reproductions of contact sheets, constructed negatives and preparatory studies.
