L'espace temps (Time in space)

'L' espace temps' brings together 6 bodies of works that investigates related themes explored between 1996 and 2003.

These series of images are linked by my research on time and space. Here different photographic apparatus are pushed to the limit of their possibilities to record the nocturnal landscape. There are often things, which we cannot perceive with the naked eye; the camera will record the trace of time passing and the unseen. I began to work on the Azure series in 2001, these photographs were taken between night and day, from dusk till dawn, when the effectiveness of our senses undergoes change, and which leads to a shift from one state to another, from the visible to the invisible, from the palpable to the impalpable. The long exposure time taken with a panoramic camera illustrates the passage of time, moving from day to night to day again.

Chrystel Lebas

Research Interests

Photography; Pinhole Camera; Film; Video

Profile

Chrystel Lebas graduated from the Royal College of Art in 1997. Her work has been exhibited extensively at international level - with recent shows in London, Paris, Cracow, Prague and Tokyo. She is represented in the permanent collection of the Bibliothéque Nationale, Paris, the Citibank Collection, London and several private and corporate collections.

Lebas' first book 'Time in Space' received the British Book Design and Production Award 2004 and was exhibited at the Rencontres d' Arles Book award the same year. It brings together six related bodies of work, created with the use of a variety of photographic tools and formats, and features nocturnal landscapes made on a rotating-lens panoramic camera with exposure times of between two and six hours. The largest body of work - 'Azure' - was shown at the Photographers' Gallery in 2002.

Lebas recently published her second monograph entitled 'Between Dog and Wolf' (2006, The Photographers' Gallery) - a translation of the French expression for twilight that suggests its transformative and dangerous potential. It features a new series of photographs entitled 'Blue Hour', which include images from a bluebell forest in Wiltshire, England. The photographs form part of a larger series taken in France, Germany, Spain and Japan between 2003 and 2006.

In 2006 the Victoria and Albert Museum exhibited new work by Lebas as part of the exhibition 'Twilight: Photography in The Magic Hour'. Recent solo exhibitions include 'Time in Space: Azure', an exhibition of panoramic photographs at Hug Gallery for International Photography in Amsterdam in 2004, and 'Blue Hour' - solo exhibition at The Photographers' Gallery, London, in 2006.