Translated material
Ksenia Plotnikova
Ksenia Plotnikova is one of those ten photographers representing photographs on the art parade, united by one topic-the province. Change.
All photos of Ksenia are actually the result of the work - at the moment of the two -hundred -year -old - for the Flikrov community 365 Days: during the year, boys and girls who know how to photograph themselves, shoot themselves in all kinds of poses, positions, spaces, time of day, etc., and then publish them on Flickr.com in the corresponding community.
The visual image of Ksenia can change from the picture to the picture, but at the same time the predominant constant remains the space of the forest (twigs, cones, trees, stumps, water and other components of natural products), where the author like the Carolovsky ideas in the name of miracles places itself. True, in the life of Ksenia is little like Alice. She looks like an ordinary girl, with whom, as it seemed to me, it is easy to start talking not about the photograph, but about what is pleasing. I was mistaken - everything came down to one thing - to her meaning of life.
What do you think, maybe officially with a full name, we will start our conversation, so as not about the photos at once?
My name is Ksenia Plotnikova. And if you start about myself with something official, then I am studying at the Faculty of Journalism of Moscow State University. Well, if you start with the fact that the most important thing for me is that I live in a small town 17 km from Moscow - Vatutinka. This is even a village, and not a village at all, but almost a forest, with a couple of houses. And all the photos that I make, I make in the forest. And so I recently considered how many pictures about Moscow I have - there are only 10 of them, and not in Moscow, at home - 203, and I need to do 365, that is, a year.
It turns out one photo per day?
Initially, when I just started taking photos for 365 days, it seemed to me that this idea was limited only to the ideas of a virtual diary. However, subsequently one thing for me became an insight and discovery: each time laying out a picture in the evenings, I remembered all day and realized that he was so joyful and happy. That is, I found a successful way to capture the happy and vivid moments of life. And then the summer came - to participate in the project in March - and I generally began to spend all day in the forest, coming there is not great.
And why - you were there alone, in the forest?
Almost yes. I sometimes took friends. But taking pictures of yourself is a very intimate thing.
How so: the process itself is about intimate, and the result of the process, that is, that hundreds of eyes are looking at you now - is this no longer intimate?
What does it mean - show others? I do everything for myself.
Well, as for yourself: you lay out your pictures in LiveJournal, on the same “Flikra”, which means you do it and for something else?
I seem to share my joy with people, but this is not the original goal.
And what is to photograph yourself: look at yourself outside, or look inside?
You know, as soon as I started, I did not understand how this is so - photograph myself? For me, it was generally some kind of terrible adventure: to shoot myself every day-horror, what a narcissism-and then lay out-horror, probably, it should be bored with people. When I started, I realized that this is such a conversation with myself, because sometimes there is no time to think about yourself - and here you leave it for yourself.
I look now, you have different photos. All of them are made in Online mode, or nevertheless - is it such a planned and created reality that can, for example, try to realize tomorrow?
It happens differently. Sometimes I go in the evening, I understand that I did not make a portrait, what should I do, and here-I see some kind of thing, and I understand that I want to take a picture here. Photography is not always about the whole. It happens that really - all day I lay on the windowsill with a book and read, but it happens - just passed by.
Why are there fewer photos about Moscow? This is a big city - and is it more difficult to see yourself?
I don’t really love Moscow at all. For me, important is a sense of nature.
Is Moscow not nature? There you can also find trees-parks. What is nature?
Nature is everything. Nature is the most important thing in life. Look at the photo, it is at the exhibition: it seems to be a tree, but on the background is a building. Some kind of contrast.
Is it embarrassing?
It seems not. I love the forest: there is nothing better than to come there, lie on grass, listen to birds. These are the best moments of happiness. And I also do not photograph in Moscow because I am sometimes just too lazy to drag a camera. My photos are such a kind of ode to Vatutinka, my favorite place.
Are you not afraid that it may not be interesting to the modern viewer - forest, Vatutinka, Province? Or do you have an implicit viewer completely?
I just thought - that it is a modern person who needs it the most. Well, not in the sense that I am trying to open my eyes to someone, simply, if simplified-I want everyone to look, go to the forest and become closer to nature.
That is, I still want to show?
Well, yes. I even sign every picture, but I still do not open myself to the end.
Why should the photo be called? You think all these pictures are an independent visual sign, why is this additional nomination?
Purely for yourself, to remember the day, and somehow name that happy moment.
And when people comment on your photos, they evaluate what is depicted, or is it still more interesting for them?
There are several people who feel the content. This generally creates such an extraordinary mental upsurge.
You study in Moscow, but the big city, by the way, will be able to change the content of your photographs - are you not afraid?
I do not think that it will change me, and if it does not change me, then what difference does it make to me that the mass will think of me. I will say what I have in my head, and what I want to say, I will say under any circumstances.
And does not scare the end of all this story - with the project 365 Days?
I'm very afraid. I can’t imagine what will happen later! My friends and I are discussing this all the time, and laugh that for two more months after it all ends, I will be afraid to think about unconnected photographs.
But these are all photos of the project-they are about you, about the place in which you, or something else?
About all together, of course. This is like me - inside the whole world. I just want to attach myself to something in this world. I have not yet found my place, I have not finally formulated the image of my thoughts, I don’t know what will happen there in the near future. I do not want to do anything, just give birth and raise children. I don't know what I want.
Probably, when you do not know what you want, and the same photos in the Online mode are obtained?
That's why they turn out to be like that, because this is an eternal search for answers. I am glad that I found some courage to participate in the project.
Was it scary?
It just seemed that I could not do this. And taking pictures of yourself is very interesting in fact.
