The Krystal World 

Dan Tobin Smith

The Krystal World

2 December to 12 December 2010
Private view: Thursday 2 December, 2010, 6-8pm
Exhibiting photographers: Joel Lardner and Dan Tobin Smith

The Viewfinder Photography Gallery is pleased to present “The Krystal
World,” a collaborative project initiated by Joel Lardner and Dan Tobin Smith. The
project attempts to stimulate new imaginative strategies via an alchemical
photomontage technique. Tobin Smith’s photographic archive provides a seductive
sequence of images from which new meanings are formed and new worlds explored.
Cordyceps fungi provides a way of understanding this creative process and the
discourse associated with beauty and decay that permeates this body of work.

Cordyceps is a type of parasitic fungi found mainly on insects and other
arthropods, a few are parasitic on other fungi. When a Cordyceps fungus attacks a
host, the mycelium invades and eventually replaces the host tissue, while the
elongated fruiting body may be cylindrical, branched, or of complex shape. These
organic, unusual and beautiful shapes are created by the parasitic fungi invading the
host body. There is a parallel here with the visual outcomes of this collaborative
project.`

The photographs of Dan Tobin Smith are transformed and transmuted into
different forms by the illustrative work of Joel Lardner in an expressive, organic and
intuitive response to the original photographic work. These organic forms evolve out
of the photographic work and depend upon it for their development in much the same
way as the Cordyceps fungus invades and exploits its host for its own development
and survival.

“The Krystal World” of Tobin Smith & Lardner reflects what Nicolas Bourriaud
in his book Postproduction (2007) called ‘alter-modernity’, the formation of something
that is ‘on the move’. To enter the Krystal World is to engage with the transmutation
of form and meaning, with beauty and decay, with the seduction and transgression of
the visual image and ultimately to encounter the hidden worlds created by Lardner
and Tobin Smith.

Exhibition catalogue text by Dr. Anna Middleton, the Arts University College at
Bournemouth.

Viewfinder Photography Gallery curator: Kathleen Brey

52 Brixton Village (formerly Granville Arcade)
Brixton, London SW9 8PS

gallery@viewfinder.org.uk

Free admission

Transport: Tube: Victoria Line to Brixton

Contact the curator Kathleen Brey for more information: kathleen@viewfinder.org.uk
www.viewfinder.org.uk/exhibitions

The Viewfinder Photography Gallery is a registered charity in Brixton, south west
London, which shows the work of emerging art photographers. The Viewfinder
Photography Gallery is a registered charity number 1135482.
http://viewfinder.org.uk/exhibitions