This project consists of 12 big photographs - full-length, above a man's height portraits of different people: equal in number men and women, of different age, social status, professions, backgrounds, characters. They all are my acquaintances, and I have chosen them just because of their various personalities, characteristics and features, which are partly visible from their appearance. Some of them are short, other fat, or tall and thin. Modestly or sharp dressed, some with evident intellectual pretentions, other - simply workers, students or pensioners. And though old people can not become young again, social status can be easily changed or lost.
Everyone never has to forget that before God we are all equal. At first place to be free is a great responsibility, and to respect the individual freedom of others is an essential obligation. To live with some feeling of superiority is unacceptable and intolerable. It can turn against the person who experiences it. Actually we come on this earth only for a lifetime are not masters of our destinies, although we can partly direct them.
An old children' play serves as basis of my project: each child draws (hidden from the others) the head of a human on a sheet of paper. Than the sheets have to be rolled and given to the next one. After the bodies are ready, kids exchange sheets of paper again and continue to draw, till finally several human figures appear, all composed by completely different elements.
It is no chance that I am also among the photographed ones – ready to take part in this game on an equal level with the others. The people are 12, because the number has a symbolic meaning, and is very balanced. I hope it can be also good enough for small adequate “extract” of the socium.
Following the logic of mutual changeability, I have cut the full-length portraits in 5 equally large horizontal pieces. All photographs will be exposed so that the audience can actively participate in the installation as a co-author by changing the parts of each body.
The portraits are worked up on a computer and the natural background is replaced by a pure smooth color. In this way all replaced parts of the photographs will be recognized. The portraits are digitally manipulated in a delicate way – all are of the same size (height and width) in the frame. Those who are short or fat become “standard”, the taller ones – contrariwise shorter. So, I am taking the role of Procrustus, and at the same time of Theseus, who fights the wish of making everybody equal. For sure there will be lots of comic situations, but here lies the irony about people who feel supremacy over others.
Some photos from the exhibition in Irida (May 2004):
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