Zilverbeek (or Silver Stream) (2017–2020) is a dreamlike investigation of a man who collects mud from a stream in order to extract the precious white metal from it. The silver was the result of years of photosensitive emulsions being discharged into the water from the Agfa-Gevaert factory. The artist documents, deconstructs then reconstructs, history, brilliantly reshaping time and our perception of it to give us an oblique look at photographic materials.
Crescent is a speculative investigation on the scientific and esoteric significance of silver element. Motivated by a fascination for the materiality of chemistry and minerals, this work aims to reveal this bivalent nature, akin the photographic process, somewhere between science and magic. The stories that are going to be developed fascinated me after years of experimenting in the darkroom with silver-salts. They motivated me to make research on the properties and significance of this specific element connected to the medium I use. Silver not only makes the creation of a photographic image possible, it is also an element fully-charged with symbolic meanings. Realising these potentialities, I decided to find places where the metal grows from the earth under the lunar influence and also to re-enact alchemical experiments in the synthetisation of silver from the effect of moonlight.
Lucas Leffler
Lucas Leffler was born in Virton, Belgium, in 1993. Nominated for Futures by FOMU, he currently lives and works in Brussels.
Lucas Leffler revisits the past. Starting with stories rooted in reality, his projects focus on silver as a source of inspiration and discovery.
Zilverbeek (or Silver Stream) (2017–2020) is a dreamlike investigation of a man who collects mud from a stream in order to extract the precious white metal from it. The silver was the result of years of photosensitive emulsions being discharged into the water from the Agfa-Gevaert factory. The artist documents, deconstructs then reconstructs, history, brilliantly reshaping time and our perception of it to give us an oblique look at photographic materials.
His second work, Crescent (2019–2020), is a speculative study of the scientific and esoteric significance of silver. Here, the artist delves into something that fascinates him: the moon’s influence on the metal. His attempts to synthesise it result in photograms of sculptural objects and the sky — as though the heavens were being radiographed.
For Lucas Leffler, the shoot provides tangible evidence that a fantastical story — the pretext and context for his journeys — is true. He subjects this evidence to an experimental process involving chemicals and manipulation of the film and the subjects, thus creating a synthetic version of reality: one that transcends facts, muddies the path, and allows viewers to come to their own conclusions.
- Text by Emilia Genuardi (.TIFF)
