RECONSTRUCTION

  I finally realized that I had changed. Both internally and externally. It didn’t happen right away. At first, there was indifference to how I look, what I feel physically. Then the body itself began to transform. I stopped accepting the woman who looked back at me in the mirror. Looking at photos of me had turned into a painful process. Up until a certain point, I simply rejected the signals coming from my body, preferring instead “spiritual food”.

  But a new stage of my life had begun, in which there was an urgent need to understand that my body is also part of myself, how I can accept it, reconcile with my inner worldview, and live with it further. “The body is the carrier of meaning. The body becomes no less important characteristic of the subject than the mind or soul… it is not necessary to contrast the human soul and body.” Michel Foucault “The History of Madness in the Classical Era”) ” … Here is what I have tried to reconstruct: the formation and development of some self-practice, the purpose of which is to construct oneself as a creation of one’s own life.” Michel Foucault “The Will to Truth: Beyond Knowledge, Power and Sexuality”).

  I set myself a task: to find a balance in relation to myself and my body. To reconcile with the body. In order to normalize, “bring myself to my senses, ” I developed a program, a kind of instruction, which consisted of several artistic practices. It was assumed that each of them would give me new feelings, emotions, and positive thoughts. 

  The program included four actions: self-portrait photography, visiting the “dark room”, keeping a personal diary and walking. All the practices were something new to me. It was both a challenge to me and a process of rethinking all my previous life experiences.

   Photography turned into a kind of phototherapy for me: I tried to accept myself in parts, “detailed”. At the same time, I wanted to find metaphors for my state of mind. There were flowers in the ice.

   The “dark Room” was supposed to analyze and prescribe incoming thoughts in the dark, identify and let go of their fears. Subsequently, thoughts from the dark room “flowed” into my diary, drawings, and collages, helping with my recovery. 

  The most significant practice turned out to be walking, this “walking through the landscape, a pure form of artistic experience” (Hamish Fulton). It was a free drift, during which I tried to capture my feelings, to understand what I feel at any given moment, how my body responds, what signals it sends. And the first trip gave a long-awaited feeling of life. As a ritual during this practice, I decided to find a special place and create an element of land art from improvised materials: the silhouette of my body, lined with stones, dug in the sand, made of special materials. In addition, I made voice recordings of my impressions, sounds of nature and the world. 

  The implementation of the program was designed for six months.