What happens when nature is no longer a part of our everyday lives, but a curated memory behind glass? In his new exhibition Nature in Exile 2.0, French digital artist François Bancon delivers a powerful visual commentary on this very question.

Opening 12 October at the Centre of Photographic Arts, Bancon’s first solo show in Malaysia presents an evocative series of conceptual artworks that merge photography, digital manipulation, and philosophy. Each image invites viewers to reflect on the cost of human “progress” — where nature is exiled, displaced, or transformed into something decorative and distant.

A Look To The Future

“In a dystopian future, we risk seeing a generation that will only know trees, leaves, and flowers as artefacts in enclosed spaces,” says Bancon.

Having lived across Asia and now based in Kuala Lumpur, Bancon draws parallels between climate change and human migration, both of which he views as interconnected crises. The inspiration behind Nature in Exile 2.0 grew from an earlier project on migrant communities, evolving into a broader meditation on loss, nostalgia, and environmental displacement.

According to curator Cyril Pereira, Bancon’s art “ties human presence to nature’s wreckage… His compositions juxtapose cause and effect to provoke sober reflection.”

Bancon resists labels. Though every image in the exhibition is photographed by him, he does not consider himself a photographer in the traditional sense. “I use photography to create digital artworks,” he explains. “For me, the real question is not ‘What is photography?’ but ‘What is an image?’”

His goal? To create images that “look back at us” — that challenge us to feel, to think, and to confront the uneasy truths we’d often rather ignore.

Nature in Exile 2.0 runs from 12 October to 16 November 2025

Venue: Centre of Photographic Arts, Kokopelli Templar, 87 Jalan Templer, Petaling Jaya, Selangor. Admission: Free.