Interview with Laura Banfield for 2021 ILFORD CCP Salon
Photography by Laura Banfield
Laura is a multidisciplinary artist based in Naarm/Melbourne. Photography serves as an extension to her interest in the body and material culture, and the depth and layers of each.
A Device for Daydreaming (2021)
What's your name and background?
Laura Banfield: My name is Laura Banfield. I am a multi-disciplinary artist based in Naarm/Melbourne with a background in fashion design and dance. My practice explores bodies, material and fashion through various mediums including photography, wearable pieces, installation and performance.
Is this the first time you have participated in Salon, and what is the story behind your submitted works?
LB: This is my first CCP Salon, and I am excited to exhibit one image from a series I have been developing since 2018. The series explores the commodification of authentic experience and our relationship with technology. In the image, a hypothetical device for daydreaming that I created is worn by someone on their way to work in an alternate present.
What inspires you to take photos?
LB: Before photography, I loved (and still do) exploring the body and material culture, as well as developing the depth and layers of each project. Photographing my work has become an extension of these things. I challenged myself to spend the last month of 2020 learning how to shoot, and soon after I photographed ‘A Device For Daydreaming’.
Frame Within Frame (2021)
How do you prefer to shoot and using what genre of instrument?
LB: I shoot mostly digital using a single-lens reflex camera, but the way I shoot is dependent on the project’s conceptual framing and medium. These factors and others shift my preferences for each shoot.
Has your use of social media changed or influenced the way that you create, share and view your work?
LB: My posts on social media are often retrospective, offering me some time to reflect on my work away from the pace social media can set. Besides this, I use social media to share my practice and process that lead to my finished work: movement tests, material experiments, prototypes, and written reflections.
Moving Parts (2021), commissioned by Lambert
Which is stronger to you the influence of people or the influence of place?
LB: It is difficult for me to choose one over the other. As I am particularly influenced by my dance background, and dance has a deep engagement with people and place concurrently, I try to explore the interaction of both in my photography work.
If you could quiz one photographer about their method, who would it be?
LB: Elizaveta Porodina.
For more of Laura's work follow her on Instagram @laurabanfield.
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