2013 / Collage and photographic installation / Dimensions variable
Produced in Vladikfakaz, North Osetia in August 2013

The Suspended Real (Vladikafkaz) is the result of archival research in the national library of North Ossetia. While investigating visual metaphors implicit in the construction of local national narratives, I produced a collage installation based on images from Soviet photo albums that are juxtaposed with my own photographs of decorative patterns and street furniture.

The archival images serve as a canvas for going back in time to a medieval visual imaginary and at the same time propel us into the present reality of the public space of the city of Vladikafkaz. The work attempts to describe a sense of unreality through the metaphor of suspension and the use of the ironic, the surreal and the absurd. The process of redecorating the images of the past is a way to domesticate the image and thus reveal a female subjectivity and the possibility of transformation inherent in the ‘others’ point-of-view.