ZoomedIN Festival

Last week the Baylight Foundation and Walmer Yard’s Keeper Laura Mark curated a day of ZoomedIN Festival – a new virtual festival celebrating photography and architecture.

Our programme looked at how we experience the more sensual qualities of architecture when we can no longer visit it.

If you missed the events, you can now catch up with them on the festival’s Youtube channel or through the videos below.

One building, three takes

Walmer Yard is one of London’s most architecturally revered new buildings. It has been shot by a number of different photographers and although at first it seems instantly photogenic its developer Crispin Kelly has often remarked that it is difficult to get a photograph that really portrays the essence of the buildings and their internal spaces.

Our public programme is based on the experience of the buildings – either through visitors staying here or through events which explore a deeper connection to the architecture. In this talk we used photography and film to ask whether a building can truly be experienced without visiting it.

It included a screening of three short films/videos which portray Walmer Yard in very different ways followed by a discussion with those who have shot here on capturing the experience of the building in their work. Speakers included keeper of Walmer Yard Laura Mark, architectural photographers Hélène Binet and Jim Stephenson, and musician Haich Ber Na.

No Touching Please

How do we experience architecture when we can’t actually visit it? How do we express the sensual qualities of a space – be it through touch, sound or smell – when we are viewing a building via a screen?

As galleries, places of worship, museums, shopping centres, and other public spaces across the globe are closed, this discussion explored how the global pandemic will change how we visit buildings and spaces in the future and how we still capture the experiential nature of a space when we can’t collectively be there.

Speakers included Bompas and Parr founder Sam Bompas, Space Popular founders Lara Lesmes and Fredrik Hellberg, architectural visualiser David Deroo and photographer Ben Blossom, chaired by keeper of Walmer Yard, Laura Mark.