Foam presents a podcast series around the exhibition Foam Talent 2020. Listen to Foam Talks: Talent Edition to dive deeper into the portfolios of this year's Foam Talents.

Concept: Mirjam Kooiman and Amelie Schüle

Mastering & Mixing: Andersen Audio Productions

The Foam Talent programme and the annual Talent issue of Foam Magazine are supported by The Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation, the VandenEnde Foundation and the Niemeijer Fund.

Foam Talent is made possible by Kleurgamma Fine-Art Photolab, Starframe, Oschatz Visuelle Medien and the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia.

Foam Magazine is sponsored by Igepa Netherlands BV, supplier of excellent paper.

Foam is supported by the VriendenLoterij, Foam Members, De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek, the VandenEnde Foundation and the City of Amsterdam.

In 2021 Foam receives additional support from the Mondriaan Fund and Kickstart Cultuurfonds.

The tenth episode of Foam Talks welcomes the Swiss artist Douglas Mandry, whose work is currently part of the Foam Talents 2020 exhibition. His work is characterized by his experimental use of historic photographic techniques and self-invented processes, through which he reconfigures depictions of our natural environment.

Foam produced this episode as part of a special series of podcasts on the occasion of Foam Talent 2020. Each episode focusses on one artist aiming to evoke a conversation around their approach, offer an insight into the discourses surrounding a specific project, contextualizing it within the photography field while not forgetting the personal stories and dreams behind it. The conversations are moderated by Mirjam Kooiman, curator of the Foam Talent 2020 exhibition.

Image from the series Monuments

Podcast

Monuments with Douglas Mandry

From the series Monuments

Douglas Mandry

 in 2018. The artwork is an ice photogram digitally printed on glass, and is displayed at 33 x 40 cm.

System 8, from the series Kosmos, 2011

visible in

In an attempt to minimize the devastating effect of global warming on the glaciers of the Swiss Alps, each summer they are covered with geotextile blankets that are designed to keep the ice cool. Douglas Mandry journeyed his native country, intrigued by this desperate attempt to prevent the receding glaciers from further melting. The artist collected disused pieces of geotextile from the mountains, and later processed them as a base for found photographs of early twentieth-century alpinism in the region. Mandry also took bits of broken ice from the glacier with him in a cool box. In the darkroom, he put the ice in the enlarger, where it started to melt and drip onto the photo paper, creating a colourful aura of the glacier. Mandry then reproduced these photograms on glass plates. 

could be considered an index of the vanishing glaciers of Switzerland: frozen time, captured in an instant by the principles of photography.

Monuments, Aletsch #2, 2018

Unprecedented times have challenged us and the rapid shifts in nature are causing urgency amongst global conversations. How can our past help guide us into the future? 

On Earth⁠ - Matthew Brandt

Making a Lakes and Reservoirs print with Matthew Brandt

Ana Mendieta, Imágen de Yágul (Image from Yagul), 1973, Color photograph, 19 x 12 1/2 inches

Article: Nature's Limbo by Kim Knoppers

Podcast: Re-looking at our Natural Environment with Douglas Mandry

Monuments / Altesch #08, 2018

Nature's Limbo

In 2021 Foam receives additional support from the Mondriaan Fund and Kickstart Cultuurfonds.  

One must keep one’s eyes and ears open, one must know how to match up the facts, see similarity where others see total difference, remember that certain events occur at various levels or, to put it another way, many incidents are aspects of the same, single occurrence. And that the world is a great big net, it is a whole, where no single thing exists separately; every scrap of the world, every last tiny piece, is bound up with the rest by a complex Cosmos of correspondences, hard for the ordinary mind to penetrate. That is how it works. Like a Japanese car.

douglas-mandry

Monuments with Douglas Mandry

Monuments, Aletsch #2, 2018

Nature's Limbo

How can our past help guide us into the future?

Nature's Limbo