“EXTREME. ENVIRONMENTS”

RONDAL PARTRIDGE, MATHIEU ASSELIN, LISA RAVE 

and LOIS HECHENBLAIKNER

In the context of the FFF exhibition "EXTREME. ENVIRONMENTS" and the photography Triennial RAY 2018, the Fotografie Forum Frankfurt presents four films by Mathieu Asselin, Lois Hechenblaikner, Rondal Partridge and Lisa Rave, which deal with aspects of man’s impact on the environment in different ways.

Mathieu Asselin
“Jim Gerritson Interview”, Maine, 13 June 2013, 5:50 min

“Ever since the commercial introduction of its Genetically Modified Seeds in 1996, Monsanto has launched intense persecution against hundreds of farmers and seed dealers in the US and Canada alone, blaming patent infringement of their GMO seeds in what seems to be their drive for a complete control of crops. Like Jim Gerritsen and his family, hundreds of farmers, organizations, activists and citizens around the world are fighting Monsanto Corporation policies every day. They work to ensure the rights of consumers and to hold corporations accountable for their actions. As consumers, our every day choices are the best weapons we have.”

Mathieu Asselin began his career working on film productions in Caracas, Venezuela, but honed his documentary photography style in the United States. His work has been featured in Foam, Liberation, Paris Match, Huck Magazine, The New Yorker Photo Booth, and GEO Freitag, among others. His work has been exhibited at Les Rencontre d’Arles in France, as well as in other major cities such as New York City, Miami, Washington, DC, and Caracas. In 2014, he was selected for Plat(t)form at Fotomuseum Winterthur and as an Artist in Residence with Imagine Science Films. He currently lives and works in New York City and Arles, France. Mathieu Asselin holds a Master’s degree from ENSP – École Nationale Supérieure de la Photographie d’Arles in France. His book Monsanto: A Photographic Investigation won the First Photo Book Award at Paris Photo in 2017. He is a finalist for the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize 2018 and is participating artists at the photography Triennial RAY 2018 EXTREME in Frankfurt and Rhine/Main region.

Lois Hechenblaikner

“Dystopia”, 3 Channel installation, 04:54 min

Since the mid 1990's, Lois Hechenblaikner has dedicated himself to the subject of Tyrolean tourism and its traditional cultural entertainment, polarizing with a critical glance behind the backdrop of mass tourism and major events. As an artistic medium, he uses multiple photographs from small and large format cameras and creates works over the course of several years. His works have been exhibited in amoung others the Fotoforum West Innsbruck (1997), in the Leica Galleries in Solms and Tokio (2003), the Städtische Fotogalerie Montpellier (2005) and in the Alpine Museum Bern (2012). He is participating artists at the photography Triennial RAY 2018 EXTREME in Frankfurt and Rhine/Main region. His works have been published in numerous publications, amoung others Winter Wonderland, Steidl Verlag, Göttingen 2012, off piste. an Alpine story, Dewi Lewis Publishing 2009. Hinter den Bergen, Steidl Verlag, Göttingen, 2015, Volksmusik, Steidl Verlag, Göttingen, 2018.

Rondal Partridge
“Pave It And Paint It Green”, 1967, 28 min

In the 1960s Rondal Partridge took his 16 mm film camera into Yosemite National Park to uncover some of the inner workings of the Park and challenge the contemporary view of the America’s favorite national park.

This film extends Partridge’s photographic voice as an outspoken and compassionate critic, using the medium of film as he used photography—to show the impact of people on the environment, often creating a statement that is difficult to ignore.  At the same time he documents the cost of human transgressions upon the land, he also celebrates the alarming beauty of our world.

Born in San Francisco, Rondal Partridge (1917–2012) was the son of the photographer Imogen Cunningham and etcher Roi Partridge. As a youth he assisted his mother as well other photographers such as Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange. In 19 40 he was recruited by the National Youth Administration to document the lives of America’s youth.  He then worked as a photojournalist for Black Star Agency in New York City before serving as a photographer with the U.S. Navy.  Following the war Partridge worked as a freelance photographer, specializing in advertising, architectural and environmental subjects.  Later in life he made 1000’s of still-lives as platinum prints of things he collected such as tools, coins and plant-life. A major publication “Quizzical Eye: The Photography of Rondal Partridge” was published by the California Historical Society Press in 2003.

Lisa Rave

“Europium”, 21 min

Using various levels of imagery, the essay film Europium draws connections between Papua New Guinea's colonial past and fetish cult, the planned, high-tech excavation of raw materials and everyday consumer goods. The film weaves its individual images and narrative around the rare earth element europium; named after the European continent, the material will be culled from the Bismarck Sea to ensure brilliant colour images on smartphone displays and other flat screens, and of course for its fluorescent property, which is used to guarantee the authenticity of euro banknotes. The film describes this seemingly mundane fact as a return and repetition of history, pointing in the process not only to the complexity of human culture, its economies and systems of exchange, but it also exposing the invisible ghosts of the past as they appear in seemingly everyday things like flat screens. The film has been awarded the 21st Video Art Prize Bremen/production grand 2014.

Lisa Rave was born in 1979 in the UK and currently lives and works in Berlin.

She studied experimental film at the University of the Arts Berlin, as well as photography at Bard College, New York.

Her essayistic work often investigates issues surrounding post colonialism and history’s repeating patterns in the complex interplay of culture, economy, and ecology.

Rave was a fellow at TBA21–Academy The Current (2017) and a fellow at the Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart (2014).

Her most recent exhibitions include face value transmediale Berlin 2018,  The Oceanic Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore and I Taste the Future Lofoten International Art Festival (LIAF) 2017.