Lobby Project: David Bellard

Washington Project for the Arts presents a new Lobby Project installation by DC-based artist David Bellard that uses the NoMa neighborhood as its inspiration and source.

Nothing is immutable, everything is variable, even a point in time. Humans have found ways to rearrange matter, numbers, cells, memories, and time. We’re not satisfied with the reality of life so we dissect it to understand how it was created, then reassemble it to fit our expectations.

Bellard likes to rearrange reality through film photography, specifically the immediate visibility of transparent film, whether taking still photos or motion pictures. He learned the language of storytelling by cutting and splicing motion picture film, and now applies that same language to his
still photographs, which he cuts and edits to construct new narratives.

Because a photograph records a particular point in time, collaging it with other photos re-interprets them all into entirely new point in the present. The viewer then creates a new point in time, and a new narrative, proving nothing is immutable, not even the moment.

For the MASSING installation, Bellard photographed the architecture of NoMA by walking its streets and scaling it’s rooftops. He captures these images with large and medium format cameras then uses the transparency film to construct entirely new narratives that are displayed in his vibrant, large-scale prints. With his unique, trademark process he creates visions that embody the life and spirit of NoMA.