Laura Besançon

Her Degree Show project Towards an Urban Praxis is comprised of two parts:

Part (i) 'Alone, Together: Connect & Play'

Part (ii) 'Still, Life'

'Alone, Together: Connect & Play' represents a collaboration with people living in a high-rise, which creates a spontaneous outcome recorded by the camera. Letters are sent to the residents of the chosen buildings two nights before the happening, inviting them to listen to a particular song at a particular time, on a particular night, and to play with their lights to the beat of the music. 

'Still, Life' explores notions of play in the city. Photographs of empty playgrounds (built by Aldo Van Eyck – a key reference in Laura’s research) are fitted into distressed steel stanchion frames, highlighting their social and historical importance in the context of the city, their sculptural qualities and reflections on contemporary society.

Through constructing situations and playful interventions, Laura’s practice aims to rethink urbanism, inject spontaneity and explore questions around the spectacle, community, work and play.

She is interested in turning things around through appropriation, reconfiguration, shifting perspectives and playful action with the city’s constituents. Her work also explores notions of interior and exterior and the in-between, breaking away from dual concepts of public/private.

Her work also depicts reflective instances of alienation, togetherness, action and childhood memories.