Ana's

WHAT HOW WHY

1. EMOTIONAL REALISM OR DO YOU DO YOURSELF ON YOURSELF

WHAT It is a title of a series of photographs. There are around 18 analog photographs in the series that make part of this story. The real story itself took part during three nights and four days on an island in Croatia. It was a short get away, for me, my best friend and his dog. I guess everybody of us had its own reasons for needing to elope. The main idea was to get at least 500 kilometers from the city and then cross the sea to the island, find a beach to settle down on and sleep under the sky for some nights and stay clean from the everyday habits.

HOW IT CAME TO BE There are certain thing one needs to do for his self- therapy. I wanted to deal with my pre-anxiety before a big project I was about to embark on. To be more precise, I wanted not to think about the project and use the best of my three day short holiday break. Without making these rules, I wanted to be one/with the sea, two/ under the sky, /three/find complete darkness compared to the stars above. Moving through these steps consciously, you might actually enter a slowmotion mode and virtually prolong the 3 day holiday into many and more - non time subjected moments.

WHY The title and the term that means: “ A representational quality in a narrative that is felt to be – true to – life “. It also suggests that for some viewers, when watching a soap opera or a long running series - gives viewers a chance to form parasocial interactions with the characters. Hence my close ups shots – are aiming to develop a parasocial relationship with the nature itself. For the cultural theorist Ian Eng who coined the term, emotional realism depends on connotation more than on denotation. Even if at the level of content the treatment is unrealistic, what is recognized as real is truth to feeling.

2. FEED YOUR HEAD

(What.) This body of work was made with two analog cameras during an afternoon. It is a record of a pagan ritual that takes part every year in the region of Croatia that is not as close to the sea as it is engraved in the solid rocks. Rocks are also a representation of a nationalistic right wing conservative ignorant society that now predominates the region. In some previous times during the history of the mentioned region, people were mostly shepherds, and so their everyday life was mostly defined by the season, or the rain or the lack of it. It is well know how strong and strenuous work leaves no time for the mind to overplay you.

(How.) On the contrary, if - and - as - the idle mind is the devil’s playground, feed your head would be a metaphor on what is my position toward this people’s non- evolution. The images, both in color and in black and white, show groups of people, predominantly white males but also women and children wearing masks. The most used mask is circa a meter long sheepskin made totem planted on the top of the persons head. The atmosphere should be one of a celebration, while in reality it is not.

Why. To play with the eerie feeling I received from the experience and to mix it with the already formed opinion on the region where the pagan ritual is taking place. To propose a message to the same people to feed their heads with something more useful than nationalistic propaganda. To give another option on how to read them, or at least a musical background to it, with the last lines of Jefferson Airplane’s White Rabbit song. Or just : Go ask Alice, I think she'll know.

SteveSuggestsAna