film stills from the video work inspired by Gustave Courbets painting: The artist's studio - A real allegory of a five year phase in my artistic and moral life:
Where do our dreams disappear? Have they got their own place in heaven? Photography is a domain that cooperates with memory in a very special way. We build the identity of our recollections by means of memory, but photography offers the world that is smooth and aesthetic. The question remains: is reality smooth? The work entitled Remnants shows my attitude towards photography, life, passing, memory and death. It forces a viewer to wonder what photography is and how it has changed over the years of its existence. How does it differ from other art domains? Is photography or a photographer able to reflect reality? What is a photographed subject? What is reality? The figures of dolls come from the so-called ‘family zone’ from albums that I found and bought in various second-hand bookshops. The figures are pulled out of their primary context, depicted individually, in a new context, in the scale of a human. I don’t know any person from these photographs; I have no idea who these people were, what their names were and how they lived. I can only know what I can see, what photographs can suggest me about them. They’re like physical ghosts. The framed landscapes are photographs that I took when I was in Poland and Sweden. The breaking film of the landscapes of my memories exposes the smooth illusion created by photographs, and reveals the fragility of human memory. The film is inspired by the Courbet’s painting The Artist’s Studio.
In the film, alive and dead people mix together and pose for a photograph, trying to stand motionless.
In the film, alive and dead people mix together and pose for a photograph, trying to stand motionless.
