MARK KASUMOVIC

Mark Kasumovic is a Hamilton, Ontario born artist currently sharing his time between Canada and the UK. His work revolves around the inherent truth-value of the photograph and the many limitations within the medium. His most recent work investigates the relationships between technology and knowledge production within the context of scientific research. Other projects include: Picture/Perfect, which uses the tourist as a backdrop to explore the explosion of digital images as data in the information age, An American Landscape, which explores the multiplicity of meaning possible through the process of picture making with a camera, and Ideal Landscapes, which challenges the value of traditional landscape photography by turning the natural landscape into an artificially lit stage.  
In 2008, Mark was selected as the Ontario winner of the BMO Art First National Competition along with being credited best in show of his graduating class exhibition at Ryerson University, and receiving the Snap! Stars art award sponsored by TD Canada Trust. The following two years, Mark was featured in Magenta Foundation's annual publication, Flash Forward: Emerging Photographers. Since then, Mark has received grants and honours from the Ontario Arts Council, Canada Council for the Arts, Culture Nova Scotia, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Recently, Mark was awarded Junior Visiting Research Fellowship at the University of New South Wales School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences (Faculty of Science). His recent exhibitions include commissions to photograph the Ontario Greenbelt for Canada's largest outdoor exhibition space at the Harbourfront Centre in Toronto, and three new installations at the Harbourfront Centre's Ontario Square from onwards. Please visit his Website.

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​Earth Day 2021: Stop Extinction! Restore the Earth

Mark Kasumovic, " Vault #3" [From series: A Human Laboratory], Photography, 2015

Mark Kasumovic,  Vault #3 [From series: A Human Laboratory], 2015

​Artist Statement: Using extensive links with the international scientific community, A Human Laboratory explores the settings of many of the most significant and mysterious scientific experiments happening around the world. From a seed storage vault tucked away in polar Svalbard, to the remote Experimental Lakes Area hidden within rural Canada, this body of work focuses on the great variety of sites and apparatus’ that we collectively use to understand our contemporary world. Focusing on experiments whose outcomes are often not predetermined nor fully understood, it invites viewers to consider the ramifications of such discoveries as quantum communication, genetic engineering and particle physics. It also raises questions concerning the role of conservation and preservation within the act of discovery. 
 
Apart from the beauty of such intricate man-made spaces, the photographs in this body of work also seek to question the inherent relationships between the apparatus of scientific inquiry and the humble photographic camera. As spaces such as laboratories become more visually cryptic with the onset of advanced and often invisible technologies, the camera can highlight a new burden of photographic representation: the difficulty all instruments of knowledge production have in representing some of the world’s most hidden phenomena. It can also entice thoughtful reflection upon how reliant we are on the function of images; how intermingled images are within the culture of knowledge production, and how relationships can be constructed if the two are analyzed in tandem. 
 
Vault #3 was a photograph taken at the Global Seed Vault embedded within a massive arctic cliff in polar Svalbard. The seed vault was constructed in 2008 to house “spare” copies of seeds held within international gene banks to avoid the loss of native species during a regional or global crisis. Most photographs representing the seed vault focus on the stunning landscape surrounding its entrance; the frozen doors that need to be thawed to access the vault’s interior; or perhaps Vault #1, which was rapidly filling to capacity during my initial visit. Vault #3, however, was empty and quiet. It provided a peaceful space to contemplate the long journey every seed has made to wait together, quietly, to be called to action. 

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Recent work by Mark

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