PERFECTLY HAPPY PEOPLE
How did this series come about?
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It would be best to say - observation. As most of contemporary photographers I grew up on the theory of Henri Cartier-Bresson involving the decisive moment - astute observation of the reality surrounding us, which helps the photographer encapsulate in 1/125th of a second some universal principle, which applies not only to information resulting from the iconography of forms presented in the picture, but also truth about the world.
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Henri Cartier-Bresson elevated photography to the rank of the art of observation and building meanings. However I found out soon enough that during my street quest, while photographing in similar circumstances, l am looking for quite a different situation - for that instant when the photographed moment resounds to its fullest extent. When I can taste it. Participate in its duration and the very interesting ambiguity, which it involves.
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Perfectly happy people are a very important pro-ject; a milestone of sorts in my thinking about my photographic work. Just as my perception of art and of the world at large, this project emerges
not as a revolutionary undertaking but an evolutionary one. The brunt of it is rooted in my earlier thoughts about space. Space understood as an entity in its own right, as a figure and not just the background of registered events, subordinated to the anthropological understanding of the world.
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Nonetheless the function of man itself has changed significantly. I wanted to have him physically return to my images. To define the context, a new form of dialogue and scale above all. Together with the new thoughts about the human figure colour also appeared. This quite natural factor, though getting particular treatment in photography, of perceiving and interpreting the environment finds its due place in the new se-ries. Many reasons for that, from the desire to get real and thus to understand the intensity of the convention of the world presented in black and white, to fascination with William Eggleston and his methods of building the narrative. It would be difficult after all to image an author acting in a void. Just as audiences need an art object as a ticket to other ways of perceiving reality, a creator needs context and the audience to create the full narrative. Thus the signals he is sending return, modified by the viewer's sensitivity, giving them both an opportunity to develop and act further.
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These thoughts led me to realise the purpose of making Perfectly happy people - this was looking into and coming to grips with that, which was created in the form of photographs. Putting mimetism and realism to use in order to demonstrate the conventionality and ambiguity of situa-tions, which we experience every day.
