Benjamin Freedman: 'Positive Illusions' [Book launch & talk]

Canadian artist Benjamin Freedman will be in Milan to discuss his new book Positive Illusions with Harper’s Bazaar Italia Features Editor Chiara Nonino. 

Positive Illusions presents a captivating sequence of CGI-generated images in which Freedman reconstructs childhood memories of a 1999 family road trip to Maine. Blurring the line between reality and simulation, these surreal images evoke the sensory and emotional layers of memory, exploring how technology reshapes nostalgia and challenges the photographic medium. Together, Freedman and Nonino will unpack the themes and processes associated with the book and discuss how new technologies are reshaping the way we fabricate and understand photographs.

Saturday 5 April 
17:00 

SPBH Space 
Via Venini 26
Milan

About Positive Illusions 

Using CGI, Canadian artist Benjamin Freedman presents a captivating image sequence which meticulously reconstructs his childhood memories of a family road trip to Maine in 1999. Blurring the line between reality and simulation, these surreal images toy with the ephemerality of memory and its inseparability from fantasy. Freedman’s recreated scenes of roadside diners, pools, and picnics create a visceral and sensory dreamscape, evoking the sounds and smells attached to his childhood recollections. 
These digitally constructed images explore how technology permits us to revisit and reimagine the past in ways that feel both familiar and uncanny. Distinctions between personal recollection and collective nostalgia are compromised, creating an idiosyncratic visual realm saturated with shared emotions and histories. Freedman’s use of digital tools to recapture nostalgic scenes underscores the fluidity of memory while also challenging traditional conventions of the photographic medium. 


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