Micro-Movements is a photographic series, which explores the unconscious actions that recur with individuals. The research deals with self-perception as opposed to the gaze of the other and their comprehension of the person. The main question posed is whether the movement is an integral part of a personality or an element that distorts it, drawing too much attention from the outside world. I follow several characters with their unique traits, at times shown through close-ups of body parts to focus our attention on a very specific action taken. When starting the project, I surveyed people I know and those I’m not familiar with, questioning whether they unconsciously make any movements or small body manipulations. Unexpectedly for me, this topic had a very good response and aroused a sincere interest with a large number of respondents. Often, movements are repeated, many bite their lips, scratch the bridge of their nose, bite the skin around their fingers, roll up their pupils, rub the earlobe, pinch their nose, rub their eyes, crack their bones. But there were also rare movements, such as the hypertrophied opening of the mouth, as when a person has plugged ears; systematic patting on clothes, checking if it’s in place; movements following certain professional activities that become an everyday movement. For example, to relax leg muscles, many dancers rhythmically knock their heels on the floor, but after completing working in their profession, the habit doesn’t go away, it stays. 

This project turned out to be something bigger and more important than it was originally planned. I heard various personal stories, thoughts about perception of the external world and oneself in it, about the search for behavior with one’s body. And to some extent, I started to feel more free and confident.

My work examines the various ways the natural world is constructed and displayed. Nature has been replaced with a new nature that is meticulously designed. In nature, what is developed or preserved, highlighted or hidden, is all decided by cultural understandings of what nature is. My photographs deconstruct this understanding by highlighting artifice and the frame in which landscapes are viewed. In looking at larger preserved spaces like parks, and comparing them with artificial spaces, like dioramas and other displays, the constructed qualities of both become apparent. Photographs of displays stand in for actual, natural spaces, and actual, natural spaces stand in for displays. The ambiguity created by photographing spaces like this invites questions about the truths associated with these landscapes, and photography as a medium.