slices of red
/ 2016
photographic installation, exploring family stories of the cold war with the use of vernacular imagery.
In the summer of 2015 I visited a flea market in Sofia from where I bought two family albums. The images dating from the 50s and 60s of the last century, which I discovered inside appeared almost identical to my grandmother’s. Using the found photographs which were preserving the lives of two separate families, I decided to narrate the memories of my own family and portray the stories with which I have grew up. Through this work, I aim to illustrate the commonality of behaviour, belonging and experience and also create a collective narrative of the shared past.
Being born during the transition allowed me to have a different view on the events that took place before the fall of communism. The collages are portraying everyday mundane experiences but the narratives complimenting them are about control, propaganda, fear and the ways to exist in such a world, without losing one’s identity. The constructivist design used, creates a contrast between the movement’s ideology and the concept of the project, allowing the truth to slip out through the slices.