Memory of Touch
Photographs are not only recorded moments, they are fragments of our memories and imagination. “Memory of touch” is a work-in-progress using photography language to explore memories and imagine the past. It juxtaposes and intertwines two narrative lines. One are photographs of the photographer’s daughter, as she is growing up and going through different changes, and the other one are photographs taken during family and individual travels over the last 10 – 15 years, photographs that intuitively and emotionally explore the environment and personal experiences. Photographs are intended as portals in which ghosts of the past refuse to lie quiet, where it is not just what lies on the surface of the photographs, but it only invites and allows the viewer to get inside and then roam through memory and imagination. This project comes out the understanding that photography is a way to share one’s life way and in this way to create connections.
All Time Is All Time
(photographic film)
This is a photographic film inspired by Kurt Vonnegut’s literary work, “Slaughterhouse 5” about the controversial bombing of Dresden at the end of World War II in which Dresden was destroyed and the entire historic core of the city was razed to the ground. The film focuses on Dresden and its reconstruction as a pretext for exploring history, memories, their fragility, and nonlinear, broken time. The film is made from photographs by Ivan Blazhev and original soundtrack created by the sound artist Mike Blow. The photographs were made in Dresden in the period 2018-2020, and the soundtrack is composed from field recordings and experimental sound research to complement the visual narrative of space, time and experience.
All Time Is All Time
(photobook)
Exploration of the city of Dresden inspired by Kurt Vonnegut’s literary work, “Slaughterhouse 5”. A photobook using photographs and quotes directly from Vonnegut’s book, it constructs a symbiotic relationship between literature, photography, reality and memory.
At 3 A.M.
(photobook)
Under the auspices of “SK-2014” a curious proliferation of statues, monuments and neo-classical and baroque architecture have been popping up across the capital of North Macedonian deeply carving the urban landscape. “SK-2014” is a revisionist project which has been rewriting the history of the city and it has been redefining its identity. “At 3 AM” a personal photographic narrative of confrontation, transformation and intimate battle, documenting the trauma from the abrupt changes to the face of the city. Photographing the changing urban landscape, as well as the human landscape within it, it is an effort to make sense of the new reality, of coming to terms with the city. It is not a project about documenting the change, but rather it is a project about the psychological impact of the change and a search for a sense of identity and community within the new landscape.
Bio
Ivan Blazhev is born and lives in Skopje, North Macedonia. He has graduated from Brooklyn College (NYC, USA) with BA in Filmmaking and holds an MFA degree in Photography from the Academy of Arts Novi Sad (Serbia).
He has exhibited his photographic work in solo and group exhibitions in Skopje, Belgrade, Novi Sad, Krakow, New York City, Berlin, Vienna, Madrid, Brussels, Ljubljana, Drezden, etc. In 2008 his project Macedonia Dreaming was part of Beyond Walls – Eastern Europe after 1989 program at the Noorderlicht Photo Festival in the Netherlands. In 2011 he was featured in the exhibition Fragments: Macedonian art scene 1991 – 2011 at the Museum of Contemporary Art – Skopje. Blazhev has published several photo books and his photographs are also part of several collaborative photo books among others “East” (Moser Verlag) and “12 Macedonian photographers” (Templum).
Over the years Ivan has worked in the tradition of reportage and documentary photography with focus on social, political and cultural themes, but more recently he has concentrated on personal work still grounded in documentary approach but exploring more, subjective, intuitive and poetic visual language.