vaz-duh #02
2007/2019Series of images taken between 2007 and 2009, around New Zealand and I recomposed them in early 2020 as part of large prints and with the intention to put together a limited edition of a printed catalog, hopefully, available later this year.
vaz-duh #02
2007/2019Series of images taken between 2007 and 2009, around New Zealand and I recomposed them in early 2020 as part of large prints and with the intention to put together a limited edition of a printed catalog, hopefully, available later this year.
About vazduh or the breath of seeing.
The word “vaz-duh” haunted me for a while, its meaning is used to describe air, space, or atmosphere (in the Romanian language), but literally the word combines two different words “to see, seeing” and “spirit, breath”… as if, to me, there is a spirit in the air that allows seeing to take place. Vazduh is something absent that allows our seeing to perceive what is possible to be seen. Something magic, like light, we don’t see the light directly, we see only objects lighten, lights unveil what is there or light itself can be dressed up in the air, atmosphere, into the evening light. “Vazduh” is blessing the transparency of space, yet like a body that invites and welcomes our eyes to see through.
We all take words for granted being used without any awareness of its beautiful composition in itself, also like most of my subjects I could say that I collect things which are taken for granted in the ordinary sense, lost in invisibility, grasses, rocks, trees, or just like the light this magic space called bazduh allows the right distance to grow and define everything in order to make sense of the world around us, myself. Vazduh to me is the space that allows distance to exist and so our eyes could embrace it freely.
By our nature we see things around us as obstacles, so challenges to take action, we see the grass when it needs mowing, we see the rock when it needs to be moved and a hill or a mountain that needs to be climbed and conquering it through gasping and sweating and so on, but if I see through this magic air, magic light I see everything as a subject of admiration, just sit and look through the air, through the magic space… this is what this word should remind me, the miracle that is capable of seeing, that vazduh allow us to see what’s there so we can make something out of it. I go farther and imagine vazduh like a body that keeps things apart so the light, the air, the rain the wind can blow through it, breathe through it, so the seeing can reach the other side.