Murdoch University
The Krishna Somers Foundation presents the year’s sixth lecture. The photo-project slide show will be presented by
Martina Müller,
a PhD student in English and Creative Arts at Murdoch. Please come to the seminar, enjoy debating semiotics of the photographs from Martina’s recent research trip to Paris and Prague and drink some excellent wine (or orange juice).
This photo-project attempts to juxtapose photographs of Prague and Paris each of which is a historically and geographically significant metropolis.
Being born and brought up in a city (Prague) which is famously called ‘the heart of Europe’, I have inherited the intrinsic values and understanding of a culture which is over ten centuries old, although the time I lived there was under Russian oppression. I don’t like to admit it, living in an oppressed country left scars on my back and regrettably as well on my lens.
Since I moved to Australia 14 years ago, I made three trips to visit the country I was born in, and which I still acknowledge as one of my homes.
To me, as a photographer, Prague is not a challenge any more. On the contrary, Paris, a city of which I have dreamt for long years became a challenge. I could not help but apply the well known inherited approach, which I have been using for many years in taking photographs of Prague, to Paris.
With the help of new digital technologies I have attempted to inspect that inheritance, taking off from the culturally and historically established approach, and analysed photographs from both cities by juxtaposing them in one frame, stripped of their existing frame of time and culture to become my time and my culture through my eyes and lens. By doing so, I have manipulated not only their pixel-based foundations but their symbolism as well.
For now I’d like to invite you to share the experience of these spectacular cities.
