FORMAT: Ahead Still Lies Our Future

About

Artists:  Lida Adbul, Lisa Barnard, Ursula Biemann, Kenta Cobayashi, Hannah Darabi, Sohrab Hura, Zhang Jungang, Wanuri Kahiu, Ester Vonplon and Sadie Wechsler. 

An exhibition in response to the FORMAT17 theme of HABITAT, curated by Hester Keijser and Louise Clements that presents artists who encourage the viewer to speculate about futures imagined on a global scale, as they are brought about by the technologically induced changes in our planet's biosphere on an epochal level. In particular, it focuses on how the selected artists reimagine the ways that we inhabit the physical world, using diverse approaches to tell their stories. 

The artworks range from Ester Vonplon’s layered and intricately composed requiem for the melting glaciers in her native Switzerland, to Lida Adbul’s monumental video installation What we have overlooked, in which she returns to her homeland of Afghanistan to ask how the individual can deal with memories of a country so marked by war and tragedy. Especially for FORMAT, the Japanese transmedia artist Kenta Cobayashi will recreate his immersive and VR installation Island is Islands.  

Other works included are by Ursula Biemann, Sohrab Hura, Sadie Wechsler, Hannah Darabi and more. All of the artists look at the extraordinary interconnected nature of the human spirit and the habitat that it encounters or creates.

FORMAT presents the best international photography talent in venues throughout Derby alongside a wide programme of talks, tours, workshops and interactive projects. The theme of FORMAT17 is ‘Habitat’ and takes place 24 March – 23 April 2017. FORMAT was founded in 2004 and is directed by Louise Clements, organised and hosted by QUAD and the University of Derby.

For full listings see: www.formatfestival.com