Exposure 2023 Photographer of the Year Award:
Elyse longair, Picturing the Infrathin
Contemporary Calgary
February 2 - March 3
Marcel Duchamp suggests that the immeasurable gap, “the possible implying becoming — the passage from one to the other takes place in the infrathin”. Elyse Longair’s exhibition, Picturing the Infrathin, evokes Duchamp’s concept of the infrathin through collage with a specific focus on her flat seamless aesthetic where the thin space or gap between image fragments approaches (in)visibility. Each collage is created similarly: embracing subtly and carefully composed using a limited number of image fragments from her archive of popular knowledge source material, predominantly National Geographic magazine images from the 70s, 80s and 90s. Her work is durational, as Longair may wait years to find a near seamless and logical image match. In this infrathin space she creates, the viewer can imagine freely the possibility of the image, and the roles of picture making and imagination.
BIOGRAPHY
Elyse Longair is an artist, curator and image theorist from Lethbridge Alberta. She is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in Screen Cultures and Curatorial Studies at Queen’s University. Longair’s research focuses on collage history, collage as research creation and institutional strategies of collecting and curating collage. Her ‘simple image’ theory in collage redefines the role of images away from the overt-complexity that dominates our world, opening up new possibilities for imagined futures.
Longair’s research and practice go hand in hand. Several opportunities helped inform this exhibition with thanks to the many people who generously supported and helped her along the way.
o Spring, 2023, she participated in the Banff Artist in Residence, at The Banff Center for the Arts made possible by the support of The Peter MacKendrick Endowment Fund for Visual Artists. This opportunity allowed her to research collage at the Walter Phillips Gallery and focus on her studio practice where she created three of the collages for Picturing the Infrathin.
o Summer, 2023, with thanks to The David Edney Research Award, Longair studied at The Centre Pompidou where she researched Duchamp’s concept of the infrathin in conversation with Max Ernst’s collages.
o Fall, 2023, Longair presented The Infrathin in Collage, in Pausa: Infrathin Art History at The University of Arts Association of Canada Conference (UAAC) at The Banff Centre.
2023 Emerging photographer of the yeaR
Each year one artist who has exhibited in the Exposure Emerging Photographers Showcase is selected by the juror to win the Emerging Photographer of the Year Award. The recipient of this prestigious award is given the opportunity to present a solo show at the following year’s Exposure Photography Festival. The award provides the emerging artist with a platform to show their work while furthering their professional practice and building their career within photography and the arts. Exposure mentors and supports the artist in developing their vision in the best possible way. Our 2023 juror, Tiffany Jones, Publisher of Overlapse, selected Elyse Longair for the 2023 Emerging Photographer of the Year Award.
Open: Wed - Sat: 12:00 - 19:00 & Sun: 12:00 - 17:00
Access: Location is wheelchair accessible. Exhibition is child friendly.
Contemporary Calgary, 701 11 St SW, Calgary, AB T2P 2C4