News
FEBRUARY 2013: HINTERLAND – RURAL/URBAN
This month Lyon will be working alongside Michael and Fariba Benson of Candlestar, Emma Morris of Towner Museum and Mark Power of Magnum to finalize the long-list of contenders to be offered to the Jury of the Syngenta Open Photographic Award. In turn he will be serving on the main Jury alongside: Award Chairman William Ewing, publisher of the International Herald Tribune Stephen Dunbar-Johnson, Irina Chmyreva senior researcher at the Russian Academy of Fine Arts, Brazilian curator and anthropologist Milton Guran, Jordanian editor and journalist Malu Halasa, Mike Mack Syngenta CEO and Pulitzer winning Chinese photo editor Liu Heung Shing. In parallel with Lyon’s current work the award will explore ideas around Rural/Urban, a theme and award structure conceived by him for Syngenta in collaboration with Candlestar in early 2012. Unique among international photography awards it will combine the democracy of an open event with the dynamic nature of an artist led commission. The winner of the commissioned section will be given US $40k to fund their proposal. In turn Syngenta will facilitate a thought leadership dialogue around the theme to coincide with the exhibition of the final works in 2014 at Somerset House.
HINTERLAND Triptych I – 2013
Hinterland is a continuation of Lyon’s journey to cast light on the realities of the modern environment and the urban edge. The first Hinterland series was created in the Cape Flats of South Africa, a vibrant yet desperate mix of swamp, sand, shack and low-cost, high-density temporary structures and housing. Each image in the series of twelve focuses on a particular environmental theme. Described as, “a body of work that defines and explores the space where the rural watercourse becomes the urban concrete culvert”. Built from a collage of original images shot from the air in 2102 the work plays on shape and edge looking to define the random nature of land development and there by question the key environmental themes of the early 21st century through dynamically created new landscapes. The final images will be editioned alone and in four large- scale triptychs.