Group exhibition "Life Action Game Action", Multimedia Cetre Mala Stanica - National Gallery of Macedonia, Skopje, 2011
Solo exhibition "Shadow", Gallery MC, New York, 2011
Solo exhibition "Shadow", Gallery MC, New York, 2011
Slavica Janeslieva
SHADOW, 2011
‘Shadow’ represents a personal
perception of the present, of the times we live in, here and now, of the relations
between power and submissiveness, of the intellect, of creativity and
intellectuality. Is my own perception of reality true or not? Is that also the
reality of the visitor? Is there only one reality?
Can we speak of power when
something is enforced or is it power to achieve a specific reaction using a (threatening) behaviour? On one view, power represents the action to
create, i.e. to influence certain behaviour. Light creates the shadow, hence we can view
light as power, but also as knowledge. Fuco
argues that ‘power is knowledge’.
The relationship between the
elements of the shadow, the light and the projected image of the object, can be
used as a valid metaphor for the individual, the collective, or the society we live
in, as well as for their correlation with power and knowledge. However, we need to also remember that
passivity (lack of response) is also influenced by power.
According to Jung, the shadow,
or ‘the aspect of a shadow’, is part of the subconscious and includes within the
suppressed weaknesses, faults, shortcomings and instincts. The shadow is both instinctive and
irrational, but also susceptible to projections: turning its own inferiority
into a visible (an apparent) moral drawback within another individual.
The shadow represents the
distant, primitive and indiscriminate aspect of the mind. The appearance and
the role of the shadow largely depend on the life experience of the individual,
however, some followers of Jung believe that the shadow, despite the fact that
it is personal, it is also the shadow of
society, nurtured and deprived by the suppressed collective values.
The other important aspect of
the shadow (in literature, theatre, fine arts), is the presumed link between
the shadow and the night, the darkness.
Under the surface, a person suffers from excessive boredom. The boredom makes everything seem hopeless
and empty...as if the initial confrontation with oneself casts a dark shadow
before time.
People have an intuitive
connection with their shadows. Perhaps
the shadow helps us map our body in space and guides us in defining our role.
When people try to see their
shadow, they become aware (and usually ashamed) by the very characteristics and
impulses they negate within themselves; yet features they painfully realise in
others – such as egoism, mental laziness and weakness, some unreal fantasies,
schemas and scripts, negligence and cowardice, excessive greed for money and
all things material...
The shadow can represent the
whole truth, part of the truth, or it may not be true at all. It makes the existence and the presence
immortal, portraying them as a picture-image.
It captures fraction of a moment, and (just like the photograph) it
makes it eternal. I understand it as a
surrogate, as a substitute for the real person, for the body, mind and
soul. It represents my attitude towards
the world around me. The true versus the
false, or, as Socrates said ‘enlightening or unenlightening’. It has the power not only to create illusion
and thus to deceive us, but also to educate us.
From the illusion, it can create an alternative reality, or rather, it
can turn the illusion into reality.
Through the representations of
the shadow, I am able to disrupt the perceptions and the generally accepted
truths and to allow the visitors to see a different truth. In other words, to turn the invisible into
visible. To uncover the veil which is
typical of psychology, culture and the pressures from society.
http://www.gallerymc.org/h/slavica-janeslieva/
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