Ainur Sakisheva

It took me a day or a month or a year to realise that I was in a deep existential crisis. It was through self-portraits that I got to know myself again, my capabilities, fears, and desires. As the next step in understanding myself and determining my place in the social paradigm of normality, I decided to take self-portraits in a photo cabin. In a place where standard photos are usually taken for documents, I resort to an experiment where I combine playfulness and courage. This act is symbolic and even transgressive for me, as I am trying to break the boundaries of the traditional use of the photo cabin and turn it into a personal space for creative expression. Nudity, changing clothes, using masks and wigs give me a sense of freedom and the opportunity to express myself without restrictions.

Through my creative act, I emphasise the contrast between the purpose of a public place and my photos. This is my attempt to demonstrate the absurdity of social norms, an attempt to free society from any expectations. This is a game of substitution of concepts, double standards. To make a public place a place of frank conversation. This is a provocation. It's a challenge. It's a confession.

A place where you can get naked, put on a mask, be yourself, be nobody. The world flying at cosmic speeds provokes resistance. The world of fast food, fast fashion, fast life. A world where you have only 15 seconds to express yourself.

The war has got under skin, it flows through veins, pulsates with rocket explosions. War is like a serious illness that knocks you down. It strikes and destroys everything healthy in its path. It has no pity for the elderly, for people with disabilities. Destroyed souls in destroyed bodies. Trembling voices tell horrific stories of war. About lost sight, about disability, about hiding in basements for months, about going to work under rocket attacks. The war hits the most vulnerable harder, more painfully.

People are physically and mentally wounded. Devastation, despair, and anxiety have become the companions of existing diagnoses such as diabetes and thyrotoxicosis. There will be no record of the impact of war on a patient in a medical book. Anamnesis of war is a deep, traumatic experience inside each person. In the experience of living through the war. In sleepless nights, in the shaking of walls, in the loss of loved ones. There is no immunity and no cure for war. This disease is carried on the feet.

What is our memory? Can we reproduce our memories 100% reliably? Sometimes there are gaps, which grow larger over time, and less information is left of the memories. Memories are fragmentary in nature. We forget people's faces, names, places, and even important events. Only images, sounds, aromas, words, emotions.

Remembering as a process is accidental. Memories are formed in the present time, but refer to the past. The time gap between the past and the present distances and erases the reliability of memories, and puts them into question. The past event has already been subject to temporal changes and distortions of facts (intentionally or not).

Reconstruction of a memory by artistic means, through material artefacts of the past and the formation of an artistic view of what is a memory today.

In the project "Envelopes", empty envelopes purchased at a flea market are used. By examining the contents of the envelope in the absence of a letter, the author refers the viewer to the essence of the absence of a clear memory. That is, the absence of information, the erasure of memory. We are metaphorically observing the process of forgetting. And at the same time, the reconstruction of a memory formed by the artist in the form of an overlay of an archival photograph. A new, different memory is born.

I am there, but I am not there, but I feel there.

The current existence of the physical body and the transformation of consciousness that occurred as a result of the full-scale invasion became the main principles in the creation of the project. The state of presence and the state of absence. Observation of my own psycho-emotional state. In order to determine what was lost in me, I had to determine what remained present in me. Relying on the memories of myself, on the search for what was lost, I turn to the world around me. To find, remember or create a new self. By reflecting on the natural world, using my imagination, discovering other aspects of life, I fill in the gaps inside me.

Below is a note that started me on my way to creating collages of self-portraits.

"Until 24 February, I felt happy. In the full physical and psychological sense. Happiness took on a metaphysical form. I could touch it, share it. It lived in me. With the full-scale invasion, I lost myself. That's why I'm trying to recover myself from the cut pieces, from the modelling of myself as I could have been. Or was. Somewhere I exist. I resuscitate, associate, cut, fold, listen, ask, and remain silent. I create collages. And collages create me."