Ana Alexandrescu

Bucharest (Romania), Romanian

Edition 2017 - Finalist

Statement: this ever ongoing project has no name and is mainly about me making a very important discovery: that I don’t have to run away with the circus, because there’s circus everywhere, and sometimes I even feel I have to tame it in my photographs, to tone it down. Circus in the most wonderful meaning, at the border between real and surreal (talking of borders). As a photographer, I don’t believe I have to be in a context where people manifest exceptional happiness or sadness, during times of political tensions, social changes, in a strange landscape no many can reach, in an asylum or in a desolated industrial park. Whenever I pay a little more attention to the life developing around me, whenever I just have the feeling that I have to stop and wait for a while and I do so, the surreal flourishes like a peacock’s tail. Surreal or absurd not by any means, but by the means given by life itself. I believe one can create a dream realm using only subtle real elements. Geometry and objects are real and they bear fantastic atmospheres, movement is real, reactions and facial expressions are real. Same is the solitude people experience naturally, even in the middle of a crowd.
Circus is when sensitivity, expression and feelings stand naked in front of you. It can happen anytime and anywhere and I think this is the most surreal thing about life I can illustrate in my work. Nothing forced.