Lauren Daccache

Based in Brooklyn with roots in Beirut, Lauren Daccache is an artist whose output explores the conflicting human desire to both escape from and belong to a place. Photography — her primary medium — speaks to the idea of memory preservation and confabulation through the impact of nostalgia and time on our perception of the past.

With Impossible Garden, Lauren has written a hazy love letter to her grandmother's garden in Baabdat, Lebanon. This sensorial photo installation takes its shape through a space fully enveloped in feeling with floor-to-ceiling images printed on textured wallpaper (produced with Wallpaper Projects), photographs printed on mulberry silk, an ambient soundscape of days spent in the garden (produced in collaboration with musician Emilio Quezeda Ibanez), and a subtle olfactory element that follows suit.

In exploring the permanence of photography versus the ephemerality of memory, Impossible Garden prompts its viewers to reflect on the fleeting "realities" of a life lived.

"My relationship with Lebanon is rooted in my arrivals and my departures. When I'm away, I wonder what changes and what stays the same. When I return, I'm obsessed with documentation, but always question how accurate static memories can be in a place that evolves at a rate I cannot keep up with. How many times can we revisit these moments in our minds before they turn into something else? I never capture enough, I never get it quite right, but I keep coming back and I keep trying."

—Lauren Daccache