Alicja Dobrucka’s evolving practice, temporarily stabilized and collected in her recent project, “I like you, I like you a lot”(…)
Ostensibly a reflection on the artist’s and her family’s bereavement after the sudden tragic loss of her younger brother, the work opens up the personal space of mourning to broader affects and questions about vulnerability, youth, motherhood, domesticity and the passage of time.
The personal domestic spaces and objects presented in the images become vehicles for a transitional journey from the familiar to the unknown, a journey of maturation for both individuals and a whole generation.
The landscape shots included in Dobrucka’s project seem to a play on the memento mori theme so prominent in art, with mors giving way here to tender vulnerability. The leaning tree, the wavering reed, the passing shafts of light, are both reminders of transience and props for the viewer’s own anxious and wounded self.
In this way, the artist turns the realm of personal tragedy into a safe space in which we can all experience the precariousness of life: safely, vicariously, at one remove. The square format images become containers for this experience: a magic boxes that give us back vitality - which we should grab while we can.
(Extract/edit from: The gift of death, the gift of life by Joanna Zylinska. Joanna Zylinska is a Reader in New Media and Communications at Goldsmiths, a cultural critic and a fine art photographer. Her most recent book is Bioethics in the Age of New Media).
Born 1985, Kowary, Poland. Lives in London and Poland.
Education:
London College of Communication, UAL, London, UK
Selected projects:
2011, Art Asia Projects, Mumbai, India
2011, Bloomberg New Contemporaries, ICA, London, UK2011, Dystans, The Agency Gallery, London, UK
2010, I like you, I like you a lot, Kallitas Elott Galeria, Tuzrakter Arts Centre, Budapest, Hungary (solo)
2010, Nature Rewritten, Wieden + Kennedy, London, UK
2010, OPEN Here, Hereford Photography Festival, Hereford, UK
2010, Homeless Gallery, Photomonth, London, UK
2010, UK Young Artists, Quad, Derby; UK
2010, Fresh Faced Wild Eyed 10, Photographers’ Gallery, London, UK
2007,The Swimming Pool Series, The Foundry, London, UK (solo)
