We live in a wonderful and scary world, permeated by information flows of different kinds, that bombard us every day through numerous screens, speakers, individuals and other transmitters. The modern world has become so big and seemingly transparent for every small human who has access to modern informational devices, that it's easy to get lost in this dense soup of scratches of worlds swirling around us, struggling for our attention. It's become so easy to immerse ourselves in virtual universes, sink into numerous daily duties and faraway news that most of us, so-called “highly civilized” people gradually lose the ability to be aware of our immediate realities, to notice what is right here and now, and who we are in relation to all this. What does it even mean – to be related and connected with the world, to feel a mutual belonging with the space your body moves through? How to find the thin but essential threads of our intimate connection with the world, in this mess of alien networks, noisily surrounding us? There is no universal way to escape from the fragmented reality of the modern world. But some simple exercises can help to not be lost, and to maintain our personal existential integrity: open your eyes, pay attention, try to see the beauty in the simple things around, listen to the stories they try to tell you – and you'll see your own reflection in myriads of facets of everyday objects. With enough patience, you'll start to feel the unseen threads that bind you to the world, and weave your own unique tapestry of reality.
The series is shot with the simplest pinhole cameras, made of drink cans, on photo paper, manually woven into kind of “carpets”. Developed and fixed with the classical paper developing kit. Scan of the negatives
Diana Pankova (born in 1988) is from Minsk, in Belarus, and there studied music and philosophy before discovering photography, gravitating quickly toward simple cameras and analog methods. Currently studying New Media Arts in a joint Masters program in Austria, Denmark, and Poland.
She has exhibited and given workshops on pinhole photography widely.
Photography is one of the ways of exploring the world for her: noticing meaningful elements in the casual complexity of reality, capturing its reflections in a way that can be shared with other beings, who can see in a similar way. Experiencing, encountering and exchanging – this is the main driving force of her creative endeavors, that focus a lot, yet are not confined with, on various forms of pinhole photography.