Is l’amour de soi a “proper” way to express
oneself in the Balkans?
This
series aims to showcase third-wave
feminist stances from the Balkan region, while trying to pinpoint their vraisemblance as opposed to their
alleged zeitgeist mimicry. As an Eastern European “Xennial”, I have lived
through several sociopolitical appropriations, most of them clashing
thunderously against traditionalism. Feminism was more of a guerrilla-aspiration
in the Balkans within the past three decades, with urban pockets of casual
victories; sometimes, it was just a mass-media glossy trend; most of the times,
it was expediently whitewashed by reactionary posturing. I’ve tried to capture
on film what I have visually heard, notwithstanding
my unapologetic male gaze.
The
technique I am using for this photo-cycle is restricted to the manual processing of the 6x6 medium format film negatives,
followed by combinations of
post-development brutal retouches and graphic annotations, using several
types of special inks and nibs directly
on the negatives. I opted for this form of seemingly chaotic calligraphy in order to emphasize an
entropic sense of identity that occasionally requires additional layers of
societal obscurity. Successive corrosive
alterations of the film ensue, up to the brink of physical disintegrations.
The final technical stage calls for a particular form of film scanning, which erases
futile nuances and defensive artifacts.
And
yes, just as the introductory question hints a J.J. Rousseau reference, the
title of this series is, indeed, a U2 / S. Kubrick innuendo!
COLLECTOR EDITION
> edition size: limited edition of 10 + 2 AP, numbered from 1/10
> format: M/XL/SL > print size: 50cm/100cm/150cm
> medium: archival pigment print > museum standard
more
on: https://alexandru-crisan.com/
