DERIVOGRAFÍAS: From the capture to experience
2026
Presented as part of the Bienal Internacional de Arquitectura de Buenos Aires and marking 200 years since the invention of photography, Derivografías: From Capture to Experience is a solo exhibition and experimental activation that proposes a practice of observation, shifting the photographic act from capture to experience.
Inspired by the Situationist dérive and by the idea of walking as both an aesthetic practice and a way of knowing, Vivian Galban’s project invited the public to explore the city with pinhole cameras specially built by the artist. These devices slow down perception and create new relationships between architecture, the body, time, and the image.
This process turns moving through the city into an exercise in which stopping, observing, and waiting become the very material of the work. The image becomes the material trace of an experience, and the artistic act becomes a record of the activation.
The project is part of Vivian Galban’s ongoing research into the relationships between photography, experience, and image formation, which she has pursued for over a decade. An architect and visual artist, Galban works in the expanded field of contemporary photography. By building cameras and optical devices inspired by proto-photographic technologies, she shifts the focus from the finished image to the process, placing observation, the journey, and waiting at the heart of the photographic experience.
This exhibition was made possible with the support and collaboration of Alto Estudio, Vass, El Danes, and Valentina Konyukhova.
