Araville Wizlei Viernes
'Conscious Mystery'
I fell in love with the structure of tall buildings and the city itself. I believe that streets and tall buildings represent our dreams and path. It makes me look up ahead, out and beyond, to the sky where we realize our dreams. Dreams are always far out there and seem out of your reach. Using collage, the black and white image represents the real world we live within. The coloured images represent the dreams we are obsessed with and the red spots lead us to these dreams. They also further obscure our reality. When we get obsessed with the idea of a dream, we can’t see ourselves in the real world. Do we create these obsessions so we don’t have to face brutal truths? Is this what drives us to achieve our dreams? This work was inspired by photographer Odette England. Her artwork felt mysterious to me and I wanted to achieve that feeling in my artwork to share the mysterious reasons we become obsessed with dreams.
Maija Westra
'Presence'
To really capture the theme Dreamers, I decided to use a black and white film camera because I like the element of surprise when you develop the film and the raw quality of the photograph. This camera allowed me to create a square composition and gave me the ability to use double exposure, which also enticed me into choosing a more ethereal theme for my image. I captured a woman who is not physically present in the real world. She is in a never-ending dream, a dreamer because when we get lost in our dreams of other lives and other places, we are not present in the here and now. What I want people to take away from my image is that when people truly dream of being in another life or different place, it can feel like you’re already there.
