Alex Prager begins her film projects and photographic series with a specific emotion in mind that she wishes to convey to her audience. To make sense of her body of work, it makes sense to start with its emotions.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY ALEX PRAGER TEXT BY NICOLE O’ROURKE
Alex Prager’s works invoke a sense of searching for something. They almost always exist at an impasse, with her photographs looking and feeling like film stills eager to come alive and unfold a story, and with her films evading and sublimating any need for a full narrative. In either case, the viewer ends up equally clueless as to what exactly is happening in front of them. Only one thing is certain: the pure emotion that the moment or moments are meant to portray.
In Prager’s video and photographic series, ‘La Grande Sortie’ (2016), we are invited into the world and mind of a ballerina whose anxieties about being on stage shift her performance into a eerie dream-world wherein audience members come on stage, disrupting and dictating her dance. Accompanying the video are photographs of said audience, with each member as distinct and innocuous and mundane as the next. All of them look ahead so as to watch the ballet dancer on stage, but, because of how the lens is directed, they are looking at, and through, us. They sit within strange sets where lights, and smoke, and empty seats, and randomly placed puppet figures create an eerie and sinister atmosphere. Even as they look through us, they represent us and our voyeuristic urge to be just a face in the crowd, able to look, watch, and stare without moral responsibility for the subject. In Prager’s work, we are both watching and watched.
Alex Prager begins her film projects and photographic series with a specific emotion in mind that she wishes to convey to her audience. To make sense of her body of work, it makes sense to start with its emotions.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY ALEX PRAGER TEXT BY NICOLE O’ROURKE
Alex Prager’s works invoke a sense of searching for something. They almost always exist at an impasse, with her photographs looking and feeling like film stills eager to come alive and unfold a story, and with her films evading and sublimating any need for a full narrative. In either case, the viewer ends up equally clueless as to what exactly is happening in front of them. Only one thing is certain: the pure emotion that the moment or moments are meant to portray.
In Prager’s video and photographic series, ‘La Grande Sortie’ (2016), we are invited into the world and mind of a ballerina whose anxieties about being on stage shift her performance into a eerie dream-world wherein audience members come on stage, disrupting and dictating her dance. Accompanying the video are photographs of said audience, with each member as distinct and innocuous and mundane as the next. All of them look ahead so as to watch the ballet dancer on stage, but, because of how the lens is directed, they are looking at, and through, us. They sit within strange sets where lights, and smoke, and empty seats, and randomly placed puppet figures create an eerie and sinister atmosphere. Even as they look through us, they represent us and our voyeuristic urge to be just a face in the crowd, able to look, watch, and stare without moral responsibility for the subject. In Prager’s work, we are both watching and watched.
Alex Prager begins her film projects and photographic series with a specific emotion in mind that she wishes to convey to her audience. To make sense of her body of work, it makes sense to start with its emotions.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY ALEX PRAGER TEXT BY NICOLE O’ROURKE
Alex Prager’s works invoke a sense of searching for something. They almost always exist at an impasse, with her photographs looking and feeling like film stills eager to come alive and unfold a story, and with her films evading and sublimating any need for a full narrative. In either case, the viewer ends up equally clueless as to what exactly is happening in front of them. Only one thing is certain: the pure emotion that the moment or moments are meant to portray.
In Prager’s video and photographic series, ‘La Grande Sortie’ (2016), we are invited into the world and mind of a ballerina whose anxieties about being on stage shift her performance into a eerie dream-world wherein audience members come on stage, disrupting and dictating her dance. Accompanying the video are photographs of said audience, with each member as distinct and innocuous and mundane as the next. All of them look ahead so as to watch the ballet dancer on stage, but, because of how the lens is directed, they are looking at, and through, us. They sit within strange sets where lights, and smoke, and empty seats, and randomly placed puppet figures create an eerie and sinister atmosphere. Even as they look through us, they represent us and our voyeuristic urge to be just a face in the crowd, able to look, watch, and stare without moral responsibility for the subject. In Prager’s work, we are both watching and watched.
POSITOPIA
17
OUT NOW
is a large format international biannual magazine from Istanbul. Focusing on arts, culture and society, each issue tackles various universal subjects within a distinct theme.
Address
Mim Kemal Öke Cad. No.6 D.6 Nişantaşı, Şişli, İstanbul, Turkey
+90 212 232 4288
contact@212magazine.com
POSITOPIA
17
OUT NOW
is a large format international biannual magazine from Istanbul. Focusing on arts, culture and society, each issue tackles various universal subjects within a distinct theme.
Address
Mim Kemal Öke Cad. No.6 D.6 Nişantaşı, Şişli, İstanbul, Turkey
+90 212 232 4288
contact@212magazine.com
POSITOPIA
17
OUT NOW
is a large format international biannual magazine from Istanbul. Focusing on arts, culture and society, each issue tackles various universal subjects within a distinct theme.
Address
Mim Kemal Öke Cad. No.6 D.6 Nişantaşı, Şişli, İstanbul, Turkey
+90 212 232 4288
contact@212magazine.com