EXILES
Exiles explores the concept of human fragility and it was originally created from a sense of disorientation and hopelessness due to an unexpected visa denial and a ban to re-enter the US where I had lived for fifteen years. This sudden change not only interrupted my life and ambitions, but it also made me feel emotionally vulnerable.
Inspired by Jean Paul Sartre's philosophical concept of 'being and non being', of 'presence and absence' as two existing aspects of the same reality, Exiles embodies a sense of existential precariousness and instability, of not belonging to a life that is currently being lived. It represents an estranged humanity, emotionally homeless and exiled from its surroundings. The photographs taken in 2017 in the streets of the neighborhood where I had moved in the North of London, were later screenprinted, after many challenging technical tests, onto the difficult surface of black plastic bin bags. Displayed to create an uneven surface that breaks the lines in the image, they emphasize the individuality as well as the transience of our lives. The plastic material that I chose to use, generates a sharp contrast between a sense of humanity the black and white photographs inspire and feeling rejected and discarded. It reveals how our existence may be viewed by others as valueless and even disposable, while we strive to give it a meaning.
Finally, I framed the screen prints in a deep wooden frame, that turned them into something precious and revered.