Silence - the pictures speak for themselves. This is photography by Lia Sáile, a young woman from Germany, who defines herself as a nomad in many ways. Doing theatre and film in Vienna, she has spent several past months in Malta to research theatre and art and do photography against a novel background. The Mediterranean atmosphere inspired her enough to present her works to a Maltese public with a Maltese scenario to back her up. Surprisingly multi-talented, her shock of red hair brings her breezing in announcing a dynamic character, even before she opens her mouth. Yet Ms Sáile's photographic compositions are in stark contrast to her being.
The exhibition is made up of barely 11 works in monochrome. Nonetheless they all speak volumes being distinctly divided in three series dedicated to time - Among Centuries, nature - Among Trees and contrast - In the Shadow of the Sun.
"It is always hard for me to choose titles or names and I am often tempted to leave things untitled as I dislike the way a word can oppress the actual picture, which, without words attached to it, has the chance to unfold freely. In this case it was not difficult to choose, as the Polaroids and the location - the Loggia of the National Museum of Fine Arts - create the name: Silence. It's almost an "installation", a symbiosis between images and location. There is only the sound of the fountain, running water, and a slight echo, but the outside is shut off. You are almost entering a different world, maybe a sacred place, a temple. I felt the title suits the main atmosphere of the images perfectly. The single images create different tensions, yet the whole seems united maybe in silence and strength."
The pictures speak of quiet, stillness and contemplation. The figures are beings in transition, monuments to a human figure that is harking back to its primordial existence. The pain of existence is juxtaposed against the beauty of the human shape that contorts visually and experimentally through varied poses. And perennially the quietness of the pictures comes through to allow the viewer to experience a pervading silence and calm.
With several past exhibitions to her name and in different countries, including Austria, Germany, France and very soon Jerusalem, Ms Sáile has certainly created ripples of attention in the right places. She bemoans what she considers the "late" discovery of photography and Polaroid at age 19 which happened only by coincidence when she collided with Polaroid camera at a flea market in Vienna. Buying it straight away, she has used nothing else since. She was bowled over by its merits and decided it was to be her personal favoured visual medium. Ms Sáile has been actively experimenting with Super 8 film, digital interventions and stop animation. In the creation of the works for this exhibition, she has utilised highly light sensitive Polaroid material combined with the vintage Polaroid 100 Land Camera.
Locations did not happen haphazardly and each pose is significant thanks to the ambience it is blessed with. "I unearthed these places through research when I had ideas, or after chancing upon specific places from a distance and knowing I wanted to try something there. For example In the Shadow Of The Sun is a spot very difficult to reach at all, which I discovered by boat. My work is always a product of a pre-planned concept perfectly controlled and executed, mingled with spontaneous improvisation and a post-process of re-combining images or re-shooting and continuing to work on the single images or series."
With the immense collaboration of her favoured models, she admits to working for long hours, sometimes eight at a stretch. She demands a lot of her models. "Working with me requires masochistic patience and endurance. It may involve working in the bright sun or under water and repeating many poses which seem very natural and comfortable but are in fact awkward and exhausting. It requires attention, precision, endurance, patience and a degree of physical and mental active participation. The process is extremely exhausting for my models and for myself and I thank them for all that they are willing to go through for the sake of the "perfect shot".
The exhibition is proof enough that Ms Sáile has been fascinated by Malta's landscape, architecture, the people... and as she candidly admits, "To me this exhibition is a chance to say thank you to Malta."
• Silence is at the Museum of Fine Arts, South Street, Valletta until Saturday.
The exhibition is made up of barely 11 works in monochrome. Nonetheless they all speak volumes being distinctly divided in three series dedicated to time - Among Centuries, nature - Among Trees and contrast - In the Shadow of the Sun.
"It is always hard for me to choose titles or names and I am often tempted to leave things untitled as I dislike the way a word can oppress the actual picture, which, without words attached to it, has the chance to unfold freely. In this case it was not difficult to choose, as the Polaroids and the location - the Loggia of the National Museum of Fine Arts - create the name: Silence. It's almost an "installation", a symbiosis between images and location. There is only the sound of the fountain, running water, and a slight echo, but the outside is shut off. You are almost entering a different world, maybe a sacred place, a temple. I felt the title suits the main atmosphere of the images perfectly. The single images create different tensions, yet the whole seems united maybe in silence and strength."
The pictures speak of quiet, stillness and contemplation. The figures are beings in transition, monuments to a human figure that is harking back to its primordial existence. The pain of existence is juxtaposed against the beauty of the human shape that contorts visually and experimentally through varied poses. And perennially the quietness of the pictures comes through to allow the viewer to experience a pervading silence and calm.
With several past exhibitions to her name and in different countries, including Austria, Germany, France and very soon Jerusalem, Ms Sáile has certainly created ripples of attention in the right places. She bemoans what she considers the "late" discovery of photography and Polaroid at age 19 which happened only by coincidence when she collided with Polaroid camera at a flea market in Vienna. Buying it straight away, she has used nothing else since. She was bowled over by its merits and decided it was to be her personal favoured visual medium. Ms Sáile has been actively experimenting with Super 8 film, digital interventions and stop animation. In the creation of the works for this exhibition, she has utilised highly light sensitive Polaroid material combined with the vintage Polaroid 100 Land Camera.
Locations did not happen haphazardly and each pose is significant thanks to the ambience it is blessed with. "I unearthed these places through research when I had ideas, or after chancing upon specific places from a distance and knowing I wanted to try something there. For example In the Shadow Of The Sun is a spot very difficult to reach at all, which I discovered by boat. My work is always a product of a pre-planned concept perfectly controlled and executed, mingled with spontaneous improvisation and a post-process of re-combining images or re-shooting and continuing to work on the single images or series."
With the immense collaboration of her favoured models, she admits to working for long hours, sometimes eight at a stretch. She demands a lot of her models. "Working with me requires masochistic patience and endurance. It may involve working in the bright sun or under water and repeating many poses which seem very natural and comfortable but are in fact awkward and exhausting. It requires attention, precision, endurance, patience and a degree of physical and mental active participation. The process is extremely exhausting for my models and for myself and I thank them for all that they are willing to go through for the sake of the "perfect shot".
The exhibition is proof enough that Ms Sáile has been fascinated by Malta's landscape, architecture, the people... and as she candidly admits, "To me this exhibition is a chance to say thank you to Malta."
• Silence is at the Museum of Fine Arts, South Street, Valletta until Saturday.