Ambient, Aberrant
(homecoming edition):
Sonia Mangiapane

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photo access

Sonia Mangiapane Sliver, 2021, C-print (photograph with darkroom intervention),

Ambient, Aberrant (homecoming edition) is an ongoing body of work that explores the ways we mediate out experiences of the Natural world, particularly through the lens of leisure tourism. Handprinted in the colour darkroom, my work seeks to raise questions around the artifice of sightseeing, chasing the sublime, our relationship to Nature (or what we think it is). It sets out from the premise that the photographic gaze and the tourist gaze emerged at the same time (around 1840) and have been inextricably linked ever since.

By laying bare the constructed nature of photography, my work aims to call into question the authenticity of the image, of Nature, of any mediated experience. I invite viewers to recognise that our interactions with the world around us are always mediated—whether through the lens of a camera or a culturally constructed idea.

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Exhibition artist

Sonia Mangiapane

Sonia Mangiapane is a photomedia artist working with processes defined primarily by their interaction with light, as opposed to the exclusive use of the camera. Employing a range of camera-based and cameraless methods her practice takes the form of photographic prints, cameraless or hybrid works on paper, moving image works and other light-based interventions. Themes such as the tourist gaze, Nature and the underlying constructions of the photographic are the focus of her work.

The colour darkroom is a core site of her practice. It’s a space in which she makes, rather than takes a photograph; pushing the boundaries of the photographic by undertaking conceptual and technical approaches which diverge from the snapshot.

Sonia was born and raised on unceded Bunurong country, lived in the Netherlands from 2012-2024 and is currently based in Naarm/Melbourne.

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Related events

Artist Talk:
Sonia Mangiapane

Join exhibiting artist Sonia Mangiapane as she discusses her current exhibition 'Ambient, Aberrant (homecoming edition)'

Upcoming exhibitions