Silverlens participates in Paris Photo for the first time in over a decade, with a solo presentation of Poklong Anading. As one of the most vital force-multipliers from Southeast Asia, Anading brings a remarkable body of work to the Grand Palais, Main Sector, Booth D49, on 12–15 November.

Spanning twenty years of the artist’s practice, the presentation brings together anonymity (2004–present), flash back, and mother of corals, tracing Anading’s exploration of presence, light, and the gradual dissolution of the recognizable figure.

From portraits disrupted by light to images shaped by participation and the environment, Anading approaches photography as something less fixed than it first appears. His works shift between presence and absence, the individual and the collective, inviting us to look again at what a photograph can hold.

Silverlens will also launch seeing, being seen, a new book surveying nearly three decades of Anading’s practice across photography, video, and sculpture. The launch takes place at the booth on 12 November at 4:00 PM.

Poklong Anading (b. 1975, Manila, Philippines; lives and works in Manila) works with a wide range of mediums and is acclaimed for his pieces that investigate photography and travel. Fascinated with the process of creation and permutation, Anading explores different mediums to engage with a range of sociopolitical and environmental questions. Having begun his career as a painter, he is not driven by an overt agenda, but prefers to let his mind wander, thinking with and through his materials as they undergo their transformations. He frequently uses found objects and discarded materials that lead him to investigate notions of worth and value, and to explore what it means for art to exist inside and beyond capitalist production.

Anading has completed residencies with Big Sky Mind, Manila, Philippines (2003 to 2004), Common Room, Bandung, Indonesia (2008), Bangkok University Gallery, Thailand (2013), Selasar Sunaryo Art Space, Bandung, Indonesia (2013), Philippine Art Residency Program - Alliance Francaise de Manille in Cite Internationale des Arts, Paris, Centre Intermondes, La Rochelle in France (2014) and das weisse haus, Vienna Austria (2018). He had solo exhibitions in Galerie Zimmermann Kratochwill, Graz, Austria (2010 and 2012), Taro Nasu in Japan and Athr Gallery in Jeddah (2016), 1335MABINI in Manila, Philippines (2013, 2015 and 2017). He has been included in notable group exhibitions such as: Gwangju Biennial, South Korea (2002 and 2012), No Country: Contemporary Art for South and Southeast Asia, the first exhibition of the Guggenheim UBS Map Global Art Initiative in New York, Hong Kong and Singapore (2013 to 2014), 5th Asian Art Biennial: Artist Making Movement, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taiwan (2015), The Shadow Never Lies, Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai, Afterwork, Para Site, Hong Kong, China and in the Architecture Biennale for the 15th International Architecture Exhibition, Philippine Pavilion: Muhon: Traces of an Adolescent City at Palazzo Mora, Venice, Italy (2016), Constellations, Photographs in Dialogue, SFMOMA, California, USA (2021) and Living Pictures: Photography in Southeast Asia at National Gallery Singapore (2022).