Obsessions
– an idea or thought that continually preoccupies or intrudes on a person’s mind.
– a state in which someone thinks about someone or something constantly or frequently especially in a way that is not normal
– someone or something that a person thinks about constantly or frequently – an activity that someone is very interested in or spends a lot of time doing
I started researching on the topic by asking the people around me, what were their obsessions, if they had any fixed idea or feeling, that would always stay with them, at the back of their mind, and drag them through their lives. For some people it was spiritual practices they believed in, for others – fears and worries, for example a childhood fear of being abandoned by the people they loved or a fear of losing family members. For others it was movement and body, self destruction or some imagined things. All this diversity brought me to the idea, that I should concentrate on transmitting the feeling itself, rather then show exact people and their personal stories. I was asking them, how does it make them feel, when they think about it or follow their obsessions. I also decided to go into exploring my own obsession with self destruction and try to bring it all together and show in a more abstract way.
For the final series I have chosen a more intuitive approach, looking for the feeling in the landscapes and objects around me, using human body as an object as well. I wanted to try to capture some sort of a sign language you imagine when you are obsessed with some idea – in these moments it seems like the whole universe is talking to you, giving you hints and signs. The more you look for them, the more of them you start seeing – like weird rune language, made of the branches on the ground, or a picture of an ocean or some space galaxy in an empty tea cup.
I only worked with found things, without touching or changing them, as I wanted to show them in the way I stumbled upon them and for the same reason I only used natural light.
04.2016