AnaStef
Did I choose my view of the world, or the view chose me?
Was it always there?
I didn't always pay attention to it.
I didn't always know how important it is.
And now, when I look back, I can see that it grew stronger through time.
It grew stronger when I started to listen and pay attention.
So I can talk through no words and I can see through no eyes.
Background
I grow up in Socialist Yugoslavia, that promised so much at that time. By the time it disintegrated as a country, it had run out of steam and left its pioneers, its brothers and sisters, in complete chaos. The final years of our dying country strengthen my distrust about the world around me.
Strong cultural tradition became more dominant after Yugoslavia's disintegration.
People's behaviour and expectations deeply rooted in tradition, kept the form but lost the true meaning.
How can we ever be sure that we see is what we think that it is ?
My work permanently adopted the aspects of distrust and uncertainty, however I am also on the lookout for new structures formed from the fragments of the past.
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On the other side , under the influence of Orthodox religion, , my interest reflects an ongoing search for possible answers for the impossible questions. Overall, it strives for new and valuable structures in society and culture in the face of new, global age.
Fragmentation as methodology
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Deconstruction of the thought or the object, in order to define structural components in the researched subject
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Investigation of what are they made of
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Search for new possibilities created from fragments of material of ideas
Object- Image
Objects are important to me. By objects, I mean any physical existing forms capable of revealing another nature, something more than their material or sensual qualities.
Images are important for my practice. They are visual representations of the model, however, through the recording process, images get personalised due to the way we perceive and interpret information, both physiologically and psychologically.
Also, notion that visual images could be portals for another reality is rooted in belief that Icons, Images used to tell religious story, are windows in to another world.
This relationship between object and image becomes crucial in my practice; object holds existential objectivity, while image has a freedom of self expression. Together they form the structure with more integrity needed for creation of new possibilities.
Sculpturing
I approach the film in a free way, the same way I approach the physical object, sculpture. I use it as a tool like a brush or clay. I sculpt frames, I cut them and layer them over each other, creating a new structure while looking for contingency beyond physical manifestations and appearances.
I slow down the film tracks, I mix them up and keep reconstructing them until the aspects of personal human experience, with emotional, poetic and ambivalent in-between moments, are revealed.
It is an attempt to touch the untouchable which shapes our life experience, and is probably making us who we are.
Digging deep in to the way we think, feel and process the phenomena of being alive is an essential part of my creative process. Through the processes of fragmentation and reconstruction my work is aiming to address complex ideas behind our existence.
Research
The enquiry in to the unknown can only happen through continuous examination of what we already know and revisiting subjects for ongoing questioning.
The research is taking place in all areas of science, such as quantum physics, philosophy, psychology, biology, but is also looking in to the personal stories of everyday people, and particularity my own story and experience.
Vase as a vessel
I started working with vases when I visited back home after my mum died. She had a cabinet display full of vases that she collected over a long time. For me, they had a sinister side as they all started their life as packaging for medications. My mum worked at the chemist and pharmaceutical companies who were marketing their products through vases as a form of package. As such, they were developed as really beautiful and desirable objects.
Braking vases became part of my work. In the past, I recorded the moment a vase crashed to the floor, made a film about it, and mended the vase.
In my later work, I used images from my mum's cabinet in the film Love of wisdom.
With my most recent work, I have stared to embrace the vase as a vessel for femininity, an object that holds lots of personal but also cultural and historical meaning.
It has also been repaired and become more valuable as cracks between fragments have been filled with gold.
Sustainability
For me, the meaning of sustainability in my art practice is about being part of the active art network. As I am already supporting myself financially by having an alternative profession, I need to make sure to regularly participate in activities and opportunities organised by art communities and organisations. Therefore, balancing the time between my art practice and the work that I do for living, will offer the best sense of sustainability.