Amaranthine

„Amaranthine“ is the new series of self-portraits by photographer Helin Bereket. With props borrowed from theater & pantomime make-up, swimming costumes from the early 1920s and 1950s brutalist architecture scenography, we see an actress embodying different styles and epochs. She plays all roles of the story, which is polychronic, dissonant, and multilayered. Striking different poses, she blends aesthetics of classical sculpture, grand manner painting, silent film, slapstick and contemporary fashion photography. At times the actress is gracious and monumental, at others contemplative, calm and peaceful. She invites and even teases the viewer, nonetheless she is a serious entertainer. Staged in monochrome black and white photo mode the images transpose us in times bygone, yet nothing is old in them. We recognize newly designed architecture, the deployed photo technology is cutting-edge, and we start to think we might as well encounter the actress, who is our contemporarian. Bereket recycles not the past but the present, our current urban space, style techniques and technology, thus creating a confusing palimpsest of times open to infinite subjective interpretations.