Leah Zhang
Solar - Film - 24min - 2026
présenté dans le cadre de l'exposition Panorama 28 - Invisibles ?
Film
A group of journalists and a film crew enter a mine built in the 1970s during the communist era. In the caverns, two films are being made simultaneously: one for the news report, the other for the artist. Underground, conversations revolve around work, clarity and the reconstruction of images, while the sounds of labour echo through the dust. Amidst the smoke and mist, the image becomes blurred, unstable, out of focus. How are we to interpret these images when we have always sought to represent the underground as a clear system of politics, property and industry? Through the never-ending history of underground image-making, starting in ancient times, who settled in the cave, and who ventured further in search of symbols? When the journalists come back up to the surface, in their camera, modernism, collectivism and spectres are found in the images.
Leah Zhang (born in Shandong, China, in 1992) lives and works between Amsterdam and Roubaix. A graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, she completed a residency at De Ateliers in Amsterdam in 2024. Her work has been exhibited at Framer Framed in Amsterdam, the Times Museum in Guangzhou, and the Chisenhale Gallery in London.
