Carla Liesching

Carla Liesching was born in Cape Town in 1985 and was raised in various small towns around SA, mainly in the Eastern Cape. She received her BFA, specialising in photography, video and sound installation, from Rhodes University in Grahamstown and moved to Johannesburg shortly after graduating in 2007.{{cite web|title=Everywhere and Nowhere Spaces|url=http://www.artsouthafrica.com/?article=874|publisher=Art South Africa|accessdate=24 April 2013|date=July 2011}}

She has spent time working in Taipei, Taiwan and is currently based in New York City.{{cite web|title=Carla Liesching|url=http://www.photomanhattan.com/about.htm|work=About PhotoManhattan|publisher=PhotoManhattan|accessdate=24 April 2013}}

Her work investigates human relationships to structure, particularly ideological shifts in geographic organisation and narrative. Liesching's practice addresses conceptions of self in relation to place, movement, distance and belonging. Interested in the photographic portrait's agency in the shaping of identity narratives, Liesching creates archives of staged environmental portraits, which parodically hearken back to the medium's early involvement with human classification systems and pseudo-scientific exploration (for example, photography used in the aid of physiognomy, physical anthropology, phrenology, Darwinism and colonialism.{{cite web|title=Artist Statement|url=http://www.carlaliesching.com/?page_id=233 |publisher=Carla Liesching |accessdate=24 April 2013}} Liesching's installations often include sculptural and sound components alongside her photographic work.{{cite web|title=The Swimmers – Installation|url=http://www.carlaliesching.com/?page_id=209 |publisher=Carla Liesching|accessdate=24 April 2013}}

Liesching is represented by Cape Town-based gallery Brundyn & Gonsalves.

Her series The Swimmers,{{cite web|title=Carla Leisching|url=http://issuu.com/onesmallseed/docs/issue19_lowres_all_sp/26?mode=window&printButtonEnabled=false&backgroundColor=%23222222|work=Selected Creatives|publisher=One Small Seed|accessdate=24 April 2013}} shows people "in countries and cultures from all over the world, dressed in nothing but their bathing suits. Only the backgrounds are neither beaches, nor oceans [...] Instead, Liesching sets her subjects against abandoned factories, motionless waters, fields of grain and rough urban landscapes. [...] because they've grown up in a world that has changed too quickly and is losing all of its points of reference along the way [...] It's a way of underlining their desire to belong, their need for identity, while they live -- naked -- before the whole world."{{cite web|access-date=2021-12-25|title=Capturing A Lost Generation In Nothing But Their Bathing Suits|url=https://www.huffpost.com/entry/capturing-a-lost-generation-in-nothing-but-their-bathing-suits_n_55b11567e4b0a9b94853dfc9|date=24 July 2015|website=HuffPost UK}}

Good Hope (2021) "critically examines South Africa's colonial past". The book is made up of both photographs and personal prose. The photographs—clippings of images from tourist pamphlets, old magazines, current newspapers and family albums—focus on the gardens and grounds of the Cape of Good Hope. The work is about colonialism, tourism and trade.{{cite web|access-date=2021-12-24|title=Carla Liesching critically examines South Africa's colonial past and the imagery and mythology of the 'world of whiteness' - 1854 Photography|url=https://www.1854.photography/2021/11/carla-liesching-critically-examines-south-africas-colonial-past/|website=www.1854.photography}}

• Good Hope. London: Mack, 2021. {{ISBN|978-1-913620-42-4}}.

• Masked Portraits, Gordart Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa, 2008{{cite web|title=Carla Liesching at Gordart |url=http://www.artthrob.co.za/08jun/listings_gauteng.html#gord2|work=Listings: Gauteng|publisher=ArtThrob|accessdate=25 April 2013 |date=June 2008}}
• A Bear in The Woods, Moja Modern Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa, 2008{{cn|date=December 2021}}
• The Swimmers, iArt Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa, 2011{{cite web|title=Carla Liesching: The Swimmers |url=http://www.brundyngonsalves.com/exhibitions/2011/carla-liesching-the-swimmers/ |archive-url=https://archive.today/20130625154538/http://www.brundyngonsalves.com/exhibitions/2011/carla-liesching-the-swimmers/ |url-status=dead |archive-date=2013-06-25 |publisher=Brundyn & Gonsalves |accessdate=25 April 2013 |date=March 2011 }}
• Geography and Some Explorers, Brundyn & Gonsalves Gallery, South Africa, 2013{{cn|date=December 2021}}

File:Antonia (from the series The Swimmers).jpg

File:Edward_(from_the_series_The_Swimmers).jpg

File:Goitsione_(from_the_series_The_Swimmers).jpg

File:Jasminé (from the series The Swimmers).jpg

File:Jerry_(from_the_series_The_Swimmers).jpg

File:Kate_(from_the_series_The_Swimmers).jpg

File:Mpho (from the series The Swimmers).jpg

File:Navarre_(from_the_series_The_Swimmers).jpg

File:Sonja_(from_the_series_The_Swimmers).jpg

File:Thabiso_(from_the_series_The_Swimmers).jpg

File:Pocket (camouflage).jpg

File:Pocket_(fall).jpg

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• {{Official website|www.carlaliesching.com}}

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Category:South African women photographers

Category:Living people

Category:1985 births