Photographer
Lara Zankoul turns Beirut apartments into stage sets for the subconscious. Self-taught and trained in economics rather than art school, she builds her surreal tableaux entirely in camera, using human sized water tanks and traditional Lebanese interiors instead of software to bend reality. Her Unseen series submerges subjects to expose the split between who they present and what they conceal, while Dream sends women levitating through ornately painted rooms salvaged from a country losing its architecture one demolition at a time. She has shown at Ayyam Gallery in Beirut and Dubai and at Guy Hepner in New York, and Broncolor named her a GenNext winner in 2016. Every image reads like proof that Lebanon's interior life survived what its exterior did not.
Signature Traits
Major Works
Voyage (Monograph)
A collected survey of her surreal and fashion work gathered into a single volume, her self taught technique laid out series by series.
The Unseen (2014)
A human sized water tank splits each subject into two contrasting halves, submerged and dry, built entirely in camera with no digital manipulation.
Dream
Women levitate and drift through traditional Lebanese homes with hand painted walls and mosaic floors, several photographed just before the houses were demolished.
