Tacita Dean

Contemporary artist who preserved analogue film in the digital age through groundbreaking installations

British visual artist Tacita Dean (b.1965) revolutionized how we perceive temporal media through her unwavering commitment to 16mm film when the world transitioned to digital formats. Her monumental work FILM (2011), created for Tate Modern's Turbine Hall, transformed celluloid into a sculptural medium through layered projections that interacted with the architecture.

Dean's obsession with obsolete technologies extends beyond nostalgia. In Merce Cunningham performs STILLNESS... (2008), she documented the choreographer's final performances using three simultaneous 16mm projections, creating a fragmented narrative that mirrors memory itself. This work challenges digital immediacy by forcing viewers to physically move between screens.

Her trilogy exhibition at the Royal Academy (2018) redefined traditional categories of art - Landscape, Portrait, and Still Life - through film installations that blended chalkboard drawings with moving images. The 13-meter chalkboard The Montafon Letter (2017) combined Alpine landscapes with nuclear disaster narratives, demonstrating her unique environmental commentary.