LEWIS BALTZ RESEARCH FUND #13
Initiated by LE BAL in 2015 and supported by the Artworkers Retirement Society, the Lewis Baltz Research Fund awards an annual grant to support creative projects, including books, installations, performances, films, or experimental digital works.
LBRF #13 Recipient – REBEKKA DEUBNER
The Lewis Baltz Research Fund #13 is awarded to Rebekka Deubner for the project tempête après tempête
« For the past twelve years, I have been returning to Fukushima Prefecture, documenting the consequences of the nuclear accident on ecosystems and human bodies. My focus has been on the more or less visible traces of 3.11*, the ways in which the territory has been reshaped, while also taking an interest in the forms of “normal” life that have persisted there. I then encountered young people who had experienced the triple disaster at a pivotal moment in their personal development, giving rise to a hybrid portrait of local youth. Today, I would like to examine the notion of reconstruction in the towns bordering the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Beyond their specific history, these places embody possible versions of our futures in environments that humans have rendered uninhabitable. I would like to bring these temporal and spatial layers into dialogue, in order to sketch an image of a territory where natural and industrial disasters, as well as the ways in which they are managed, act as revealing forces. » — Rebekka Deubner
* 3.11 refers to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, which occurred on 11 March 2011 in Japan, following an earthquake and tsunami.
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Rebekka Deubner was born in 1989 in Munich, Germany. She lives and works in the Île-de-France region. After studying art history and photography, she has exhibited her work at LE BAL, Les Rencontres de la Photographie d’Arles, the MEP, Fondation A Stichting, and as part of the Triennale Art & Industrie – Chaleur humaine in Dunkirk. Her work is represented by Les Douches la Galerie, where she presents strip in 2026, a project exploring intergenerational memory through clothing and the body. In 2022, she was among the finalists for the LE BAL/ADAGP Young Artists Award for her project in Fukushima Prefecture focusing on the triple disaster of March 2011. In 2025, she received the Institut pour la Photographie de Lille Grant to support the development of la terre amoureuse (said of soil that sticks to the boots), a project addressing the question of water and the tensions surrounding it in the Deux-Sèvres region, which is exhibited at Les Rencontres d’Arles in 2026. Publishing plays a central role in the shaping and circulation of her work, through self-published editions and collaborations with publishers such as Rotlux Press, September Books, Art Paper Editions and Sasori Books.
Practical info
Operated by LE BAL, the Lewis Baltz Research Fund has been created by the generous support of the Artworkers Retirement SocietyArtworkers Society.
This year the recipients have been selected by the Lewis Baltz Research Fund Committee : Theresa Luisotti, Mark McCain, Slavica Perkovic, Thomas Zander, Florian Ebner, Walter Moser, Matthew S. Witkovsky and Diane Dufour.
Since 2015, Lewis Baltz Research Fund recipients have included : Alessandro Laita et Chiaralice Rizzi (2015), le duo d’artistes Reichrichter (2016), Joanna Piotrowska (2018), Johann Lurf (2019), Tarrah Krajnak (2021), Theo Simpson (2021), Gabriela Löffel (2022), Jo Ractliffe (2022), Marina Gadonneix (2023), Hélène Giannecchini (2023), The Otolith Group (2024) and Andy Sewell (2025).