Arles, France. 2014.
For this series I worked about free festivals, meaning events usually happening in the evening or at night, with live music and free entrance.
The latter being an important condition providing that every social group had access to these events, even those people with little to spend for entertainment, including myself.
Festivals are social events for some very specific social groups, depending on the genre, space, time and the way of advertising of the event.
They are also melting pots, ritualized happenings where people come together to make invisible bonds, in a sense of an archaic ceremony, where music works stimulating to unite strangers to feel a mass experience, comparable to the atmosphere in a football stadion.
In another way a purely egoistic experience can be had, with a feeling of joy and pleasure, by focusing on the senses, the movements. Spoken words become useless, body language und gestures take over the role of communication and expression,
a strange isolation, pure in its appearance yet delicate in its persistence.
…
…
This series was produced during an Artist residency in Arles, France in Summer 2014.
Thanks to Fugitif Leipzig, VOST collective for the invitation and crazy six weeks and OFAJ for funding the programme.
The group exhibition took place in pop-up VOST gallery during the 45th Les Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie d’Arles.
