Fruit Fly
Roksana Parvanova

The photobook ‘FruitFly’ is a collection of series of film and digital photographs shot in Bulgaria, the artist’s homeland. A photographic documentary collection of observations in the artist’s home, embracing ephemeral elements and feelings of loss. The artist explores her home with new eyes, like she is experiencing it for the first time through the lens of grief.

The house has turned into a time capsule of ‘now’ and ‘before’. Shots are recorded during the golden hour – sunset and sunrise, in order to emphasize on the ephemeral nature of life, while the medium of photography contradicts it. The documentation outlives the lives of the mortals and turns them into immortal through memory. There’s no faces in the photos, yet there is portraits of objects and furniture, things that became functionless with their ‘owner’s’ absence. There are limbs and hair, now and then, alluding a presence of a human being. Hints of human bodies are in an entangled relationship with the objects around the house, portrayed in the poems written next to the photos. ‘The Man’ is the protagonist, speaking and living through the physicality of the objects. Plants, the Golden hour, the pregnant cat, the bread-making, the dusty-mouldy objects around the house create a visual language and diary that helps expression of confusing thoughts and feelings of grief. However, the tradition (bread making) as a repetition, pregnant cat, sunset and sunrise remind us that everything is temporaryand part of a life cycle that will keep repeating itself until eternity.

The photographs remind us how mortal we are and how through documentation and remembrance we can turn the mortal into immortal. The photobook ‘FruitFly’ serves as a therapeutic tool for the artist and the viewers/readers who have also experienced loss and struggle to express, visualize or communicate it.

Roksana Parvanova is a visual artist working within the area of photography. Her work concerns the society, politics, the marginalised, and mental health. She is interested in the visual narrative and the purposes a photograph serves. Observing, documenting, and constant reflection are involved in her practice. Furthermore, the photographer that the camera and visuals have beneficial, yet to be discovered, therapeutic uses. The artist uses the medium of photography as a tool that can visualize a subject matter and convey a feeling, capturing the ephemera; materialize it, transforming it into immortal, over lasting the mortal human flesh and memory. ¹

Fruit Fly, Roksana Parvanova