Hematoma Dream

Hematoma Dream, photography series, video, sound and recycled lace and fishnet assemblage.

Could it be that such a phenomena as a Collective Hematoma exists; the sum of all the world's hematomas?... What does it look like, what does it sound like, what does it feel like? Is it like my HEMATOMA@Cdur, growing, spreading, aching, swelling, until we cut it and drain it - offer our attention to it, the potential to reverse the whole process?

These are the questions that I explore in my multimedia installation Hematoma DREAM in the basement of the DLUM gallery in Maribor, stemming from my Hematoma Dream photography series, exhibited at the gallery DLUM ground level.

My skin, your skin is so much more than just the membrane separating me from you. Its lines connect, intersect, dissect…  – you never know how, with what, with whom you are connected ...

… We are existing in a tightly interrelated network of many voices and bodies – multidimensional multifunctional with our ability to remember and imagine, going beyond linear space and time. My skin, your skin is trans-generational, containing not only veins of hope, happiness, love, softness of its touch… but also of disappointments, grieving, dread, agony, anger… exploding where they should not, resulting in HEMATOMA@Cdur…

By definition, a hematoma is a collection of blood outside of a blood vessel. It occurs because the wall of a blood vessel has been damaged, and blood has leaked into tissues where it does not belong…

…like my HEMATOMA@Cdur. We can have hematomas on our body – our skin, but also WE ourselves can be hematomas, not by blood causing them, but instead when emotional barriers break and emotions explode….be this in a person or in a society, in a group or on an individual level …be this in Birmingham, Afghanistan, London, New York, Berlin, or Tunis, Cairo, Sana, Greece, Bahrain, Benghazi, Homs, Tripoli and other places with pressure still expanding their hematomas…!

Through my HEMATOMA@Cdur shadows  appear, disappear and then again reappear in the unique rhythm set forth by Hematoma Dream, calling to all those who are – or that are no longer here in body form… questioning not only what we see and what is looking at us, but also all that is sounded for us. All that spreads, sedates, meditates, hesitates underneath our skin and was thought of as non-existent now pulls at our attention, like a muse, biting hard and holding its grip loyally on us till we give into and acknowledge HEMATOMA@Cdur.

The collective hematoma concerns all of us: it feeds on us because it lives through us, and is preserved and strengthened in us, as a kind of upgraded property of our DNA and a reflective shadow aspect of our existence… It is like a kind of octopus organism that stretches and clings to everything that comes into its domain of touch. In its symbiosis it reflects our parallel existence in its secret garden of our human interactions, for which we once upon a time, planted the seed that is now expanding, developing and growing further ... It grows further into an almighty network that unites us into one organism with a collective consciousness, with a collective heart that offers us the opportunity to transcend ourselves and develop into something better, into a kinder being.

With thanks to Branimir Ritonja, the Spiritus Agens of Fotoklub Maribor, Mladen Orbanič from the Fotoklub  Maribor for his great help in setting up this exhibition, and to curator Vasja Nagy Hofbauer for inviting me to the Foto Festival and encouraging me to upgrade my photo series into a multimedia installation.  If you don't manage to get to Maribor you can view my exhibition here; https://vimeo.com/607740140

Last but not least, my thanks to Tanya Vajk for donating me the handmade fishnet which she found years ago at “La baie de Douarnenez” on the western coast of France in Brittany, a Celtic land populated for centuries by fishermen, farmers, and poe