Searching for Ourselves – A Talk With Sanja Marušić

What is the Self when everybody else is gone? In the midst of vast landscapes, Sanja Marušić isolates females in an alienating space between. In dreamlike, cinematic scenes, she composes our relation to the subconscious. Experimenting with materials, perspectives and manipulations, her works are seeking to find the essence of photography today.

You started shooting pictures when you first received a camera from your parents for your 15th birthday. In these 8 years, which are the three most important lessons you learned about your life as a photographer?

I can’t really sum up the three most important lessons. But what I did learn is to stay close to yourself and to concentrate at what you want to photograph. To step out of you comfort zone, experiment and challenge yourself. I think experimentation is really important in making arts.

Vintage chic meets contemporary fashion meets futuristic scenery. You capture the viewer with a timeless, almost psychedelic imagery. How did you develop this style?

Lately I hear the combination of retro and futuristic a lot when people talk about my photography. I must say that I like it. But I actually like to show a world that doesn’t really exist, where you can’t see when or where the photo has been taken. That is why I aim at leaving fashion behind and instead concentrate a lot more on photographing nature, because nature is timeless. The psychedelic vibe is just something I really love, I listen to psychedelic music a lot.

Your pictures capture the silence of nature while featuring bold, lively colors. Do you have a special connection to nature that shows up in your pictures?

I live in the center of Amsterdam so it’s always busy around me. Sometimes I ask myself if I should move closer to nature, but I think I like the combination of these two. Living in the city center surrounded by people and heading into nature where I’m literally alone. My mother is a biology teacher and my father grew up in a really, but really small village in Croatia, where nature is everywhere. I don’t know if that caused my love for nature or if it’s just something inside me.

You studied and are based in the Netherlands but also have Croatian origins. Does your international background influence your work?

Maybe. My photos are neither Dutch nor Croatian. I think you could say they have an international vibe, because I shoot around the world. I think it has something to do with me not feeling home in Holland or in Croatia, I feel home travelling.

You work with more than just your camera: illustrations, animations, videos and manipulation run through your portfolio. We see multiple and long exposures, the mix of analogue and digital, light leaks, filters and more. How would you describe your techniques and how did you develop such an experimental approach to photography?

Everything you sum up is techniques I indeed experiment with. My latest series Figures Under The Sun is shot with digital gear and partly edited digitally and partly edited with analogue techniques. In a previous series I shot with black and white film, so I shot analogue and edited with Photoshop. I develop it just to do it. Like I said before, I think experimenting is important to find your own style and what you want to show as an artist.

While most photographers nowadays enjoy the ease of digital gear, others stick with the analogue aesthetics. How do you think about analogue and digital photography, how important is post-production in your work? When is photography no longer photography but digital art?

I like both analogue and digital photography, I think analogue photos are more beautiful, but with digital photography you have more freedom. So that’s why I choose the latter. And the post production is even as important as photographing itself. I think it becomes digital art when the post production is more important than the original photo.

You started photography by taking self-portraits and pictures of your environment, family and friends. Do these subjects still show up in your work today?

Yeah, actually I’m back to that again. At the art academy I worked with a lot of people, like stylists and models but when I travelled to Croatia and made a self-portrait, the first one in 2 years, and the photo became my favourite photo I realized I didn’t need anybody but myself to make photos. I don’t use my environment anymore, because I don’t really like the Dutch landscape. Well, I like it, but not to photograph.

You don’t feel like a fine art photographer but since your work is represented by a gallery and an agency, you probably are one. What is fine art photography to you?

When there’s a concept, I work from visual ideas, more than conceptual ideas.

You once said that ‘photography is not something you generate out of nothing, but something you have on the inside.’ – what does your photography tell us about yourself?

Did I say that? Haha. I think when you look at my pictures and how I portrait myself you see a lot of my personality and my taste. I use my photos to try to learn more about myself, understand what I like and why I do what I do. Because my photos are literally self-portraits I think it’s very clear who I am.

You said about your own approach that your photography is not subtle but seeking grandeur – overwhelming images telling us a story. What are the stories that you want to tell, the questions that you want to raise with your pictures?

That’s something that changes with every series. But the persons in my photos are always travelling, shown at a lot of different places. I think its says a lot about people my age, we are always searching for ourselves. Where we want to live, where do we feel home, who we really are. I try to photograph the nature really overwhelming, the persons small and sometimes vulnerable. I want to show people the greatness and power of nature.

Do you learn from other photographers? Who inspires your work?

I really like the work of Viviane Sassen and Alex Prager. But I really try to develop my own style and not to be inspired a lot of what other photographers do.

Any projects coming up next?

I’m still working on my Figures under the Sun, shot in Tenerife, project!

Thanks Sanja! For more of her work, follow her Website, her Instagram and the Facebook Page of her Gallery.

geschrieben von jennifer_pos am 2016-06-10 in #Menschen #lifestyle #lomoamigo