Journey
The farther we go on a journey, the more insight we gain into our own lives. The perspective of the traveler is that of the explorer. Breath and distance appear to take a fresh look at past experiences and emotions. In contact with another culture and surprising practices, we learn anew curiosity and understanding. This is what prompts us to allow ourselves to retrospect our own experiences, even the most difficult ones, in a fresh, gentle way, with a new sensitivity. Travel in Africa breaks out of routine thinking and shatters patterns. It is from the perspective of another continent that one can see the relevance of Cioran's thoughts about Western culture, and thus about us.
Death
It is said that death is not an event in life, because after its coming we are gone. It is different with the death of a loved one. Such a death is like a low monotonous sound that accompanies us sometimes for years. The sense of absence after the other person and the awareness of the scenarios that have not been realized with him awakens sadness, anger, pain and a kind of immobility. The projection of an imaginary paradise, careful living, flashbacks of emotions, running into the waves of the rough ocean and jumping over the precipice may not be enough. Slowly an awareness of the fragility, limitation, transience of ourselves is born... and perhaps setting ourselves in this perspective is a solace.
Photography
Photography appropriates and reconstructs fragments of reality. A few frames can tell a whole story. Going to Kenya, we did not have a plan for research. Our imaginations were set in motion by landscapes, stories and foreign rituals. The process of the photo shoot itself was creative, working with the body, the found place and the hot air. Abstract situations were like jigsaw puzzles that, taken as a whole, built us a broader narrative. Paradoxically, the lack of cause-and-effect thinking allowed us to understand the essence and nature of trauma. If something happens in life that had no right to happen, our rationalism is useless. Emotions must be allowed to speak, even the difficult ones. It was the photographic image that allowed us to name them and experience them anew. He allowed us to reconstruct the situation of mourning, which took on the brightness of the colors of the equatorial sun.
The series of photographs was created as a result of a collaboration between Alicja Pilarczyk (musician) and Emilia (photographer) Łapko during a research trip to Kenya, which the artists took in February 2023 as part of the TPAAE project and the ProHelvetia research project. The photographic exhibition is also the conclusion of the research "Photography as a communication strategy - the grammar of seeing at the intersection of cultures" by Emilia Lapko.
Team
Alicja Pilarczyk | musician, artist and model
Mila Łapko | photographer
Kenya 2023
Photographs are available for purchase. Contact: hello@milalapko.com
