Exhibition report

Today is the last day of the output of my personal EVS project, an exhibition of photographs titled Odprto okno (An open window), which lasted for a week in the K18 gallery in Maribor. As I’m writing this, I have a strange feeling, which is not so strange after all (and that makes it strange). To explain the confusion, I didn’t expect my very first exhibition to happen abroad, to be a part of a different project that I enjoyed just as much, or to have it go as smoothly and non-bombastically as it did – but then again, with knowing how things in my life usually go, how did I expect anything else?

When it was first mentioned by my coordinator, Nataša, sometime in late spring, I didn’t really think much of it, going with the notion that I would first see if I can get the material I would need for an exhibition, and the whole concept somehow seemed unreal to me, which was my mixed creative self-esteem and naturally doubtful personality speaking together. But now that I look back, I’m pleasantly surprised at how many people were interested and open with contributing to what became a selection of portraits hanging in the gallery (and more photoshoots still keep happening). It feels like an accomplisment to be able to gain a certain trust from people and return it with a result that they enjoy so much they allow me to display it publicly. The material part of it – that the gallery isn’t world-famous, that the prints aren’t as big as living room carpets, that what I create doesn’t attract masses and doesn’t inspire dozens of people – it’s all relevant and I wish it was more successful in that way, of course, but what took place and made a difference is the connection I made with young people here, showed them that I appreciate them and their vulnerability with which they stepped in front of my camera, and that, even just a little bit, changed their perception of themselves. Recently I read a thought that I’ve seen come true over and over again: „The more I’m photographed, the more photogenic I feel.“ Truly, the big thing everyone dreams about, whatever it is, doesn’t happen all at once – and it’s a good thing, because we could probably not handle it if it did – but instead it comes in small bits of effort and lessons learned daily. It proved itself to me over and over both at home and now even abroad. It was an unsual experience of giving back to the community – nothing greatly important was built, no grand act of charity organized, nobody had their life turned around – I do little pieces of each at work helping the local volunteers, and I don’t think it’s up to me to do that for people in the first place, they should make the big change themselves. Instead I merely wish to show what I see and appreciate in people, the simplicity, ordinarity and similarity that makes us both identical and different and worthy of importance. Going abroad and continuing with my craft only proved to me that this notion to create portraits for people stays the same regardless of where I am.

Michal