Lena Dobrowolska & Teo Ormond-Skeaping: Feedback Loops
Feedback Loops presents large scale colour photographic works and an artist film installation from Dobrowolska's and Teo Ormond-Skeaping's ongoing body of work on The Tibetan Plateau that began in 2012 Time Of The Glacier.
Ormond-Skeaping and Dobrowolska were drawn to the Tibetan Plateau because of its geo-political importance. Known as the Third Pole the Tibetan Plateau plays a crucial role in global climate and the Asian water cycle. Rising temperatures on the Tibetan Plateau has resulted in rapid glacial retreat and desertification as the permafrost melts and the fragile grass lands deteriorate. As the water tower of Asia dries up hydro-political tension is increasing in Asia and the plateaus influence on the formation of high pressure systems in Eurasia is felt as far away as Europe where summer heat waves have broken all records.
Working with medium format film cameras Dobrowolska and Ormond-Skeaping depict the high altitude plains, geological formations and glaciers, inhabitants and manmade topographies of the Tibetan Plateau documenting development, pollution, desertifica- tion and glacial retreat. Working with the region's cultural archaeology Dobrowolska and Ormond-Skeaping intertwine the ecological and cultural significance of the Plateau, a place revered as the symbolic threshold of human exploration, spirituality and as a crucial climatic component in global warming.
Constructing sequences of images Dobrowolska and Ormond-Skeaping attempt to represent the complexity of global systems and the near invisible changes that are inherent to climate change, social political change or psychological change, the construction of sequences is also intended to highlight their ongoing negotiation with the documentary mode of representation.
Struck by the intangibility of geological, social-political, economic, climate and ecological systems that are visible yet unimaginable Dobrowolska and Ormond-Skeaping document site specific traces that reveal the impact these global systems have upon the landscape of the Tibetan Plateau and the resultant feedback that re-enters the same systems. Dobrowolska and Ormond-Skeaping intend the idea of feedback to imply that every action humanity takes has consequences that feed back through these global systems and return to shape the future in a way we cannot foresee.
Teo Ormond-Skeaping (born 1987, UK ) & Lena Dobrowolska (born 1985, Poland) are a Polish British artist collaboration working with conceptual documentary photography and artist film currently living and working in both England and Poland.
www.lenadobrowolska.com
www.szarakamienica.pl
Curator: Łukasz Rusznica
Organizer: Fundacja Grey House Szara Kamienica
Co-organizer: Miejsce przy Miejscu gallery
Galeria Szara Kamienica, Rynek Główny 6
Tue–Fri: 13:00–18:00, Sat–Sun: 12:00–16:00