Ani Zur: Fertility
© Ani Zur
The most important frame was the photograph where my 82 year old granny was holding my 3 week old daughter.
About The Exhibition
Exhibition Curator: Roberto Muffolettok
In her ‘Fertility’ series Ani Zurr,a Ukranian artist, turns to mythology and the daily craft of ancient women in Slavic culture in reconsidering the role of a woman in modern society.
Brought up in a matriarchal family, Zurr has been photographing women relatives and daughters for 4 years; she also appears as a hero in the one of photos in an attempt to live out the ancestors’ experience, to feel the sacral dispensation of a primeval woman, to retrace her secret connection with the Earth. The exhibitionis an attempt to find self identity. The work in the ‘Fertility’ series Zur reflects on the‘female mission’ and an intuitive part of a female self, gradually lost with the development of civilization. Images not only demonstrate bare female essence, opening it layer by layer; they reveal the uncertain perceptions about female purpose in the modern world.
Photographs depict simple scenes from daily female life out from any time context. Using staging, the author aims to construct a documentary feeling that highlights a traced moment as a pause in daily routine. Women appear as faceless figures with naked breasts recollecting some primitive arts that portrayed women as small figures without faces, having huge stomachs and breasts. Ani Zur refers to ancient artistic traditions in an attempt to recall the initial order of things and to underline the symbolic meanings of plots. Gathering and storage of seeds, preserving food, agriculture and usual routines become mysteries and personify the cult of Mother, spinning the endless string of the Universe. The theme of female fertility takes a special place in series as a possibility to bear children and bring them up. Here it is closely connected to the theme of earth fertility and favorable natural conditions that are so necessary for the clan's survival.
(Text from http://anizur.com/photography/fertility/, March 7, 2017)
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