Freeze! (2021)
Freeze! (2021)
When someone ask me what this series is about, what problem are you talking about, I would like to answer “about the absence of problems”.
I started shooting it out of a sense of contradiction — on the one hand, artists like to repeat that they don’t owe anything to anyone, on the other hand, they are expected to “focus on the issues facing us today” (quote), they are expected to voice the problem, to reveal it, to dissect etc. – but I didn’t want to dissect anything, I wanted to freeze at the point where nothing happens. Sometimes it is useful for all of us to freeze at such a point — maybe this is the problem.
It's about the ability to stop among the running.
I wanted to find a point where nothing happens that would make you protest, escalate, constantly update the feed on the social network. Point "12 years". Or 10. Or 11. Doesn't matter.
A simple thought: children a few centuries ago and children now enjoy the same things - warm water in the river, the wind that raises a kite, an unusual piece of glass through which the world around looks strange and funny. Girls are still happy to dress up dolls, and boys dismantle cars, even if this happens on a smartphone screen.
It seems to me that this is what unites us, adults, with children. Indeed, to be honest, we do not know and do not understand children at all, we have forgotten how we were children, we have more important things to do.
While I work with this series, the book "Dandelion Wine" by Ray Bradbury was playing in my head. No, not the text itself, of course — I didn't remember a single fragment by heart — but I remember the rhythm, the rhythm well. “Dandelion wine” is the best text for these photos, no matter how pretentious it may sound.
I started shooting it out of a sense of contradiction — on the one hand, artists like to repeat that they don’t owe anything to anyone, on the other hand, they are expected to “focus on the issues facing us today” (quote), they are expected to voice the problem, to reveal it, to dissect etc. – but I didn’t want to dissect anything, I wanted to freeze at the point where nothing happens. Sometimes it is useful for all of us to freeze at such a point — maybe this is the problem.
It's about the ability to stop among the running.
I wanted to find a point where nothing happens that would make you protest, escalate, constantly update the feed on the social network. Point "12 years". Or 10. Or 11. Doesn't matter.
A simple thought: children a few centuries ago and children now enjoy the same things - warm water in the river, the wind that raises a kite, an unusual piece of glass through which the world around looks strange and funny. Girls are still happy to dress up dolls, and boys dismantle cars, even if this happens on a smartphone screen.
It seems to me that this is what unites us, adults, with children. Indeed, to be honest, we do not know and do not understand children at all, we have forgotten how we were children, we have more important things to do.
While I work with this series, the book "Dandelion Wine" by Ray Bradbury was playing in my head. No, not the text itself, of course — I didn't remember a single fragment by heart — but I remember the rhythm, the rhythm well. “Dandelion wine” is the best text for these photos, no matter how pretentious it may sound.
…