How I have become invisible
She has been a photographer since 2007. She has had solo exhibitions in Zagreb, Italy and Florida, and group exhibitions in Croatia, Italy, Argentina, Great Britain and Turkey. Her photographs and articles about her work have been published in a number of domestic and foreign printed and online publications. Through the topics and subjects of her photographs she researches ambiguity, multilayeredness, and that what is invisible at the first sight.
Self-portraits present an important segment of Ksenija’s photographs. Her self-portraits reflect her thoughts, the atmosphere of a moment, transience.
She uses self-portraits to tell the story of existence, within her small, private universe, which permeates into all other universes, because all is interconnected. In those self-portraits she narrates a story without words, with invisible looks and a non-existent face. She is progressively becoming just a mere shadow on the wall, because how else to describe the aging of a woman who is becoming almost invisible in the society that glorifies youth.
She lives and works in Zagreb.
"These works I dedicate to myself. To the one I was, to the one I will become, but mostly to the present self.
I am writing two days after my 55th birthday, determined that I will continue to research the corners of my consciousness and sub-consciousness until the blueness sinks into darkness."
My blue moment
There are various moments. Some of them, we are not even aware of. They pass us by as a light breeze. They casually touch upon us and leave to the oblivion.
We lightly disregard them, unaware that there is no second chance.
However, now I want to talk about the moment that brings change. The moment which quietly, persistently and without piety sneaks on us wrapping us in deep blue.
We notice that moment because it is here to stay.
I have named it my blue moment.
It is my present and my future. It takes me over and absorbs me. The memory of the gold which I foolishly squandered is still fresh. The gold which intoxicated me, unaware that its colour is fading, until it has turned into the immense, dark blue.
Negative thoughts
At the first glance, I have lost the connection with myself, with my reflection in the mirror. That was not me, I did not want to be the one who is looking back at me.
Simultaneously I have been stubbornly refusing to do anything to make me similar to the old me.
That is a natural course and needs to be accepted, I thought. However, negative thoughts found their way and progressed.
How I have become invisible
At some point in life we discover that invisibility is woven under our skin, like destiny. It is there, present, since the conception, but up to that point we are not aware of its presence. When we notice the first wrinkle, the first grey hair, we start waking up from our feeling of omnipotence. Trembling in anxiety we turn our eyes away and keep sobriety for some time. While invisibility slowly progresses we try to turn time or at least stop it. We announce that we are facing “the middle age crisis”. We struggle in our impotence. Sometimes we even turn out funny in our attempts to remain visible.
I am not the only one who compares aging to invisibility. I have recently read the story collection "Invisible Woman" by Slavenka Drakulić, elaborating on the topic of aging and the related feelings. It might seem weird, but finding my own fears and trepidation in Slavenka’s stories felt pleasant. I am not alone. All that I am experiencing, all those blue moments and negative thoughts have a purpose, I thought.
I am gradually finding the way to turn my newly acquired invisibility into an advantage, in the culture that glorifies youth and beauty, but at the same time changes that youth into an object without freedom. My invisibility gives me a quiet freedom to observe, without being observed. Only now do I feel the world. I breathe it in deeply. As I become less visible to others, I become more aware of myself. Observing without being observed I absorb cognitions, and they tell me stories, mostly about me.
I love it because my creativity which is being reawakened is now directed to creating manifests which will glorify each wrinkle and grey hair.
