Dafna Talmor, Constructed Landscapes, 2020

This ongoing body of work consists of staged landscapes made of collaged and montaged colour negatives shot across different locations, merged and transformed through the act of slicing and splicing. The resulting photographs are a conflation, ‘real’ yet virtual and imaginary. This conflation aims to transform a specific place – initially loaded with personal meaning, memories and connotations – into a space of greater universality. In dialogue with the history of photography, Constructed Landscapes references early Pictorialist processes of combination printing as well as Modernist experiments with film. While distinctly holding historical references, the work also engages with contemporary discourses on manipulation, the analogue/digital divide and the effects these have on photography’s status. Through this work, Talmor creates a space that defies specificity, refers to the transient, and metaphorically blurs place, memory and time.