Marta Berens
Dream Chapter
[ EPF 2014 SHORTLIST ]
This is the Dream Chapter of my Fairytale story:
“It is out of reality that the most peculiar tale of all is born.
(…) Some call me the Elder Granny, others’ the Dryad, but my real name is Memory.
It is I who sits on a tree that keeps on growing, and growing, it is I who reminisces and tells stories.”*
This fairy tale is like a spell cast in an attempt to disenchant the past. It is an act of creating a new reality in which illusion is the truth.
They say that childhood is a time when one’s mind is asleep. Acting as a guide leading my daughter to consciousness I intend to implant in her a belief that ‘fairy tales are more than real, not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they make us realize that they can be conquered.’**
* H. Ch. Andersen
** C.K. Chesterton
Bio
Born in Warsaw, Poland.
In 2012 graduated from the Documentary Workshop with Michal Luczak, at Academy of Photography in Warsaw.
September 2012 – June 2013 member of Mentoring Programme lead by Sputnik Photos collective with Adam Panczuk as a mentor.
Since October 2013 student of Institute of Creative Photography at Silesian University in Opava, Czech Republic.
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A beautiful and lucid essay, Martha…it feels like a dream. Also I like the sequencing of the images here, where your daughter’s photo is the first one compared to the version on your website where its around the middle. I think it stands stronger on its own in the absence of any words at all.
Admittedly, I’ve always struggled a bit with abstract pieces like this. I recently had a read of John Berger’s essay on Storytelling in “Another Way of Telling” and I feel like I get it now or at least I’m a little bit closer. It’s the gaps in between the things that are said that draws the viewer in and engages him to the point where he begins to fill in the blanks with his own experiences, thoughts, memories etc.
This essay was a little bit like that for me…you can go through it again and again and the lucidity of the images make you come away with something different every time and the essence of it is just within your grasp, but not quite.
Great work!