Field Studies: Walking through Landscapes and Archives

Field Studies: Walking through Landscapes and Archives by Chrystel Lebas brings together photographs, texts and archival materials gathered since 2011. Lebas has been working in collaboration with The Natural History Museum in London, using an unexplored collection of landscape Glass plate photographs and field notes taken by British botanist and ecologist Sir Edward James Salisbury (1886-1978) in the British Isles. ‘Over 100 years later, Chrystel Lebas adopts this same state of travel, transported by Salisbury’s historic photographs. Her subject is, just like Salisbury’s was, the study of landscape environments and their inhabitant plants. Through photography and film Lebas traces the continual encounters between the forces of the wind and the sea with humans, animals, and plants.’ Bergit Arends

Chrystel Lebas has travelled to places in Scotland and Norfolk, retracing Salisbury’s steps, re-photographing the landscapes and gathering information on the landscapes ecology with the help of scientists. ‘It is only when I started to work along side scientists that I began to understand that my remit was very different from Salisbury’s. He was, after all, a photographer disguised as a scientist. Was I becoming a scientist disguised as a photographer?’

Winner of the Kraszna Krausz Best Photography Book 2018
Best Dutch book design

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