Episode 6: Erieta Attali

Erieta Attali was born in Tel Aviv and has a PhD in photography. She currently resides between New York and Paris, photographing the work of contemporary architects from around the world.

She has been teaching in some of the world’s leading universities, including Columbia University in NYC, the Technical University of Munich (TUM), The University of Tokyo amongst others and she began her career in the ‘90s as a leading expert in archaeological photography using UV and IR radiation technology. About 20 years ago she came across the work of the Japanese architect Kengo Kuma, and since then she has focused on architectural photography. She crafts images with a unique style, working with film and a Linhof camera, that means big format, with a panora-mic 6x12 cm back.
 

One of the basic ingredients of Erieta Attali’s photographs is natural light. She is prepared to wait for hours and even days for just the right light. And her choice of analogue photography takes her into a domain that we could define as slow photography. An insightful and comprehensive ap-proach that is far from the frenetic pace that dominates our overloaded consumption of images, flattened out into rapid sequences on digital media. It is not by chance that looking at Erieta’s wonderful images one can feel the presence of time. 
 

In our talk she anticipates her new research on cities and the interaction with people that started actually in Paris during the lockdown and gives new perspectives on urban space. She also tells us also about her upcoming exhibition projects with new concepts as well as her upcoming aca-demic activities.