by Leila Bakashvili

Growing up I had a friend who moved here from the Republic of Georgia when we were in the third grade. As we grew older we grew apart, but her mother became friends with mine and they loosely kept in touch over the years, caring for each other but caught up in life. Her mother was this incredibly kind, lovely, ethereal woman who was an extremely talented artist and gave me art lessons for a while. I really looked up to her as what an artist could and should be. I was happy when I heard from my mom last year that they had finally gotten together and caught up and that she now had her own very successful gallery and was planning to travel all over Europe to paint and show work.

As I was finishing my list of contacts for my business of photography class just now, I thought of her and decided to look up her website on the internet. There was a page for her gallery, with all of her beautiful paintings and mosaics as well as those of her also talented daughter. A flood of memories came back to me as I looked through the work; there was even a photograph of the painting she did of me when I was twelve years old (although I must admit, it was her one and only artwork I never liked.) She helped me paint a mural on my wall for my high school senior project, an autumn tree that is also a woman with red hair of falling leaves and sky blue eyes peaking through branches.

Upon reading her website biography I discovered that she passed away suddenly in August. I can hardly believe such an incredible woman who was doing so successfully, with children just my age, is gone.  She had this gentleness and beauty about her that always left me in awe. I can’t believe she has been gone for such a long time without us knowing….I went to visit her gallery with my father in the Fall hoping to meet her and see her new place, as well as get news of my old friend…we had assumed it was closed because she was off traveling in Europe.

I hope if anyone reads this blog they will go to her website and look at her work…it truly is an extraordinary person and talent the world has lost.

Leila in her gallery. Photo by John Andrulis.

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There is a quote by Oscar Wilde that says, “Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.” I am very interested in this view of society. I find it fascinating how similar people really are, yet at the same time each with their own subtle differences. I am also interested in how they view themselves, the way each person thinks similar thoughts.  Everyone wants to be unique yet everyone wants to fit in. Everyone wants to fall in love yet be independent. Every person wants to be successful and attractive. Yet despite knowing that people are similar in a lot of ways, everyone also feels isolated and lonely at times.

I now find myself on the verge of a major life milestone, the college graduation. As I look back at all that has led me here and all that propels me forward I cannot help but wonder if my thoughts and feelings are really my own. A million “what if” questions flood my mind these days and to find what others think on the same subjects is an inspiration and a comfort.

I have spent the past several months posing my questions to friends and strangers alike. I offered one question for each person to close their eyes for a few minutes and think about, then write down a response. I videotaped their reaction, the subtle changes and ticks everyone gets from being still awhile and focusing inward.

Always the daydreamer and self-critic, I can’t explain how it felt to watch other people take my questions and thoughts and make them their own. It felt like a unique way to connect to someone, to connect a variety of people who have nothing to do with each other. People with nothing in common except everything.

I was recently introduced to Rineke Dijkstra’s video project on teenage dancers she found outside of dance clubs in England and the Netherlands. She had them come to the studio and one at a time dance for five minutes. While unfortunately I’ve only been able to see bad cellphone clips of this on youtube, it really is a wonderful concept. Similarly to my video project where I leave the camera on a person for three minutes, it is really interesting how a person acts, moves and reacts to being in front of the camera for this given length of time.

The way they move in addition to their clothes and hairstyles speaks to their youth, culture and unique personality. A few of the dancers just stand awkwardly until their time is almost up and then dance voraciously to catch up. A couple do nothing more than bob their heads up and down to the beat. Some brought their own music to pulse to while others dance silently. Each video is a portrait of a person made up of their look and their movement. Each is empowered by dance and owns this movement. Together they create an assemblage of European youth culture that is both amusing and fascinating.

- Ronald Leong

Photography by Ronald Leong

I’ve recently discovered this body of work that I find very interesting in relation to my most recent project, discussed in a previous post. I am fascinated by how people judge other people based on appearances. It is not something most people like to admit we do, yet our brain processes things in categories, making associations based on what we know as similar, making stereotypes impossible to 100% avoid. Its incredible how different your perception of the same person can be just by changing the way they look. Ronald Leong takes this idea to an extreme, but even something as slight as a different haircut, bodily mutilation in the form of piercings or tattoos, even something as simple as a change in gesture, posture and facial expression can give a stranger a completely different idea of who you are.

Similarly, we work so hard to look our best and give off the best impression of ourselves. This has been distorted in so many ways and fads have changed so much over the years. It is a curious thing to wonder about who decides what is beautiful and what is ugly, especially since in a few years their roles might switch on the same fads.

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Photo by Parisa Azadi

My name is Parisa, and I’m a freelance photojournalist currently based in Vancouver. I specialize in reportage and travel photography, documenting cultures, relief efforts and development work of NGO’s worldwide. To view my most recent work, please go to my website at www.parisaazadi.com.

In June 2010, I will travel to Uganda to photograph the work of Amagezi Gemaanyi Youth Association (AGYA). AGYA operates a community centre committed to creating a sustainable learning environment where youth can develop leadership skills and express themselves creatively.  AGYA also provides girls with mentors, educational facilities and resources that will allow them to be successful female leaders in their communities.

My goal is to create honest and straight-forward images that tell the stories of the youth in AGYA. I will work closely with the community for 6 months, documenting their day to day lives, their customs, cultures and difficulties. In this age of mass media, there is little room left for investigative photojournalism and consumers are often bombarded with images of Africa intended to shock. My objective is to delve deeper and to tell stories that are multi-layered and multi-faceted. It is important for me to gain their trust and tell their stories from their point of view.

In order for this project to get under way, I need to raise $3000, which will cover travel expenses and equipment. The equipment I currently have will not withstand the conditons I will be in. With your help of your generous donation I will be able to complete a series that will go on exhibit in venues throughout Canada and U.S. It is my hope that this visual documentation will offer a fresh voice, by giving insight into a different side of communities living in Uganda’s urban slums. I want to  encourage global media outlets to publish complete bodies of work and to tell new stories or tell old stories from new angles.

To make this project successful, I need your support to ensure I have the best equipment possible. If you are interested in supporting my project, please click on the PayPal link to make a secure donation. You can make a donation in any amount. No donation is too small to contribute to this project. If you have any questions about my project or about donating, I am available by telephone at (604) 836-4667 or e-mail parisaphotography@gmail.com

Thank you in advance for your consideration and support.

-Parisa

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*DONATE*

I recently wrote an essay for my Art of the Last Decade class on how modern day artists represent memory by use of shadow, sillhouette and projected light and how its connected to the ancient legend of the Corinthian Woman by Pliny the Elder. For those who don’t know it, the story is of a young woman whose lover was to be sent the next morning to war and certain death. As she watched him sleep that night, his shadow sillhouetted on the wall by candlelight, she leaned across him and traced his outline, thereby beginning painting/portraiture as an artform. Her father, upon seeing her outline, made a cast of the boy and placed it there.

Her mark is not a replacement, for what the traced outline leaves is emptiness where the deceased boy should be casting his shadow. Her father’s statue however is more of a substitution for the loss, a stand in for the man who should be there. Hers merely remarks upon the absence and the fact that someone once was there, a record of his existence rather than trying to recapture the impossible. This sort of art memorial through light and shadow in the form of a temporary indication has become a modern paradigm.

The Corinthian Maid by Joseph Wright Of Derby, 1784

William Kentridge, a South African artist, is one of my favorites whose work approaches this type of exploration. His animated charcoal drawings, my favorite of which being Stereoscope, show the mark of his erasure as he moves the animation forward, representing the sense that change and time leave a mark as they continue forward. He also has a video piece titled Shadow Procession, in which he uses found objects such as gramophone speakers, scissors and tripods as well as bits of paper on a lit up screen. Using this childlike technique he creates a line of refugees walking by, representing the unending procession of the displaced in South Africa. It is similar to the hand puppet game where kids create animal shapes with their hands in front of a light. While we know that we are being fooled, that it is only a hand or a piece of paper or an object, we cannot help but to recognize the shape as a familiar figure. He thereby proves our loss of control over recognition of objects. While we may know the truth our mind will see what it wants or expects to see, based on our memories of what we’ve seen before.

Stereoscope

I’ve also discovered the artwork of Kumi Yamashita recently. She has these incredible shadow pieces, by which she creates an optical illusion out of a carving of wood or some other object. They don’t look like much of anything until a spotlight is put on them in a specific way, transforming them into something completely different, generally a portrait. She also creates portraits using rubbings of everyday objects, such as a credit card. In this way she challenges the way we think of certain objects, their purpose and our preconceived notions of what to expect from them.

In addition to seeking connection to each other, I want to explore how others connect to me. I approached a variety of friends and strangers, asking each to think about a question with their eyes closed. The variety of questions were related to something I think many people think about or that I have thought about quite a bit, mostly dealing with identity and the future in comparison to the past.

When people close their eyes for a period of time they can’t help but daydream and focus inwardly. I’ve found that their expressions, silly and awkward at first, eventually soften into being curiously dreamy. Despite the variety of people I photograph, their faces all seem to mirror each other.

I want the audience to wonder about these images. I want them to seek clues and make assumptions as we all do. I want people to feel themselves mirrored in the faces of strangers and to wonder if they are thinking similar thoughts. I find speculation and guesses made simply based on appearance to be much more interesting than the truth. It is something uncomfortable that most people don’t like admitting they do, even to themselves.

If you’d like to see my work, please come to the Twenty-Five Fine Art Show at Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, NY. The show will be up for the month of May!

The imagery is just such a perfect representation of the “little boxes” of the upper-middle class. Not only is the song perfect, but I love the fact that they have a different artist sing it for every episode’s intro. Not only do they have some great artists (The Shins, The Decemberists, Regina Spector, Joan Baez are just a few off the top of my head) but the fact that they all play the same exact song in their own original way is exactly the sort of thing I’m trying to convey in my project. Its that idea of individuality versus collectivism, particularly in middle class America.

I am taking a class on Art of the Last Decade and I love it so far. The teacher is wonderful and very informed and passionate on the subject. I’ve only had three classes and so far I’ve learned a lot and feel a surge of inspiration whenever I leave that class. One artist in particular’s work, Fiona Tan, seems to be questioning similar subject matter as myself. In particular, her 2006 video project The Changeling takes a bunch of school photographs of Japanese girls from the 1920s and has each morph into each other. In this way she is questioning this idea of portraiture and identity, blurring the lines between one girl and the next. What makes them different? Why are they so the same? If we were to describe each according to their differences, would we be able to find something to say? Its a psychological fact that we view what we know much more clearly than what we don’t. If we knew them better would they seem less similar? Would we view them differently if they were more current images, and if so what would that difference be? Would we relate to them more? Does the race, age and socio-economic background of the viewer make a difference in how we see them?

Two photographs from the video installation:

This is another photograph of hers that I just happened to stumble upon and caught my eye.  Its from a 2001 project called Kingdom of Shadows. Something about it is very intriguing to me. Not only does it deal with this double image of her face identically captured onto a mask, but I love the closed eyes. The other side of my project has been the idea of how people think and turn inward when they close their eyes. It is a fact that certain facial expressions and exclamations are 100% universal no matter what part of the world you are from, no matter what your socio-economic status, age, race, or background may be. I believe the look on this girl’s face is one of them. Its that exact dreamy, peaceful, zen look that we all get when we close our eyes and become lost in our own thoughts.