I believe in art that has a meaning and an urge. There is always a pain, and a joy to talk about. The difficulty is to find the right and honest way to express it. As a photographer I work exclusively in analogue. When shooting film there is a feeling that the image may not come out exactly as you imagined, in fact it may not come out at all, but therein lies the challenge, the beauty of dealing with the unknown.
My images talk about decay, ghosts and dreams.
And of all the memories they leave behind.
Born in Florence, Italy. Graduated with an MA in script writing and directing at Goldsmiths College, London, Valentina Lari lived in England until 2016. She's currently living in Ghent, Belgium.
Her visual work mainly focuses on sense of loss & death. She exclusively works with analogue photography and prints her own photographs. As a filmmaker, although her preferred choice is 16mm and super8mm, she integrates film with digital and explores the various possibilities that the digital format itself offer.
She was part of Panic II & III (2011-12), a series of exhibitions inspired by the panic movement created in the 60ies by revolutionary filmmakers Alejandro Jodorowsky and Fernando Arrabal. PreviosuIy exhibited in UK and Italy, her film In Loving Memory was showcased in Ghent, Belgium as part of a group show on death and relics: Letting Go. In 2012 the same video was also part of In Paradisum, an art exhibition at Rich Mix Gallery, London connected to the performance on the eponymous requiem interpreted by British composer Benjamin Till. Lari was awarded a travel & art grant by the Mütter Museum, of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia in 2010 for the production of an experimental short film and a series of photographic images and the finished piece entitled The Deformity of Beauty has been screened in various festivals & universities throughout 2012 and 2013. In late 2013 she completed a short experimental documentary on rituals and superstitions in Victorian England Dido's Lament: Victorian Rituals of Death and Mourning.
In 2014 Valentina Lari was selected for the prestigious national Creative England's Talent Centre Launch Net. Work Programme for emerging filmmakers organized by the BFI (British Film Institute) and Lighthouse (digital culture & fine art agency).
In 2014 she collaborated with the anatomy department of the University of Toulouse Rangueil for an art project. A screening of the final film Liminality and a photo exhibition was held at La Fabrique, CIAM Centre d’Initiatives artistiques de l’Université de Toulouse II-Le Mirail, Toulouse in 2014. Valentina Lari was part of Post Mortem exhibition, Rommelare Instituut, Ghent, Belgium Oct-Dec 2015. Jan Fabre, Berlinde de Bruyckere, Pascale Pollier Green, Eleanor Crook, Wil Mathijs, Chantal Pollier, Martin Uit den Bogaard were among the exhibiting artists.
She regularly exhibits in Belgium and Europe.