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Photographer
Aleksei Kazantsev
Relaxing Chamber
Gomma Photography Grant 2019 Winners

Gomma Photography Grant 2019

Relaxing Chamber

Photographer

Aleksei Kazantsev

Relaxing Chamber

02 Feb, 2022

Continuously developing series of photographs that revolves around one common theme: the idea of consciousness in humans and animals. The images are motifs of human faces and animal forms, often not immediately recognisable. There are claws and tentacles and there are people, surrounded by a black void, some seemingly asleep, some in an ecstatic trance, others in contemplation. The project circles around the human psyche and is involved with archetypal symbolism of animals in collective unconscious memory, hypnotic state, altered states of consciousness in trance and related phenomena such as feelings of euphoria, isolation and dissociation in everyday life.

About the photographer

Aleksei Kazantsev

Born in 1975 in Slutsk, BelarusLives and works in Antwerp, Belgium2016-2019, Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp (KASKA)2006-2011, SCVO Nijverheidsschool Fotografie, Antwerpen1992-1997, Belarus State University of Informatics and RadioelectronicsExhibitions:2021 Procedural mail art exhibition-collection 'Gray Mandorla Manifest', at Gray Mandorla Studio by Sergey Shabohin, Poznan, PL2021 'A Butterfly's Scream', group exhibition, PAK-Gistel with Dr. Guislain Museum at the Psychiatric Center Sint-Amandus, Beernem, BE2021 'Artificial History Museum', group exhibition, Darvin Natural History Museum, Moscow, RU2020 'Strach/Fear', group exhibition, Galeria Arsenał, Białystok, PL2019 'Wonderland Humans & Landscapes', group exhibition, PAK/44 Gallery, Gistel, BE2019 'NEW MAGICAL REALISM', group exhibition, The Minories Gallery, Colchester, UK2019 'DP19' KASKA DKO, group exhibition, Zuiderpershuis, Antwerp, BE2019 'Expo Bring Your Photobook' by Liège Photobook Festival and L'image sans nom, Liège, BE2018 'PRA__BEL', group exhibition, Galeria Krynki, Fundacia Villa Sokrates, PL2018 'DP18' KASKA DKO, group exhibition, Meatpack, Antwerp, BE2018 'Here Is Always Somewhere Else', duo exhibition, Archiraar Gallery, Brussels, BE2018 'A Whole Variety', group exhibition for Antwerp Art Weekend 2018, lwm18.be, Antwerp, BE2018 'SWELL', solo exhibition, National 55 art space, Antwerp BE2017 'All Good Stories', duo exhibition, Pulsar art space, Antwerp, BE2017 'PIC.London' photofestival, London, UK2017 'Conceal/Reveal' Photo Oxford 2017, group exhibition, OVADA Gallery, Oxford, UK2017 'RELAXING CHAMBER' duo intermedia installation/performance with Piotr Tolmachov, at Permeke, Antwerp, BE2017 'DP17' KASKA DKO, group exhibition, Antwerp, BE2015 'The Life Framer 2015', group exhibition, Los Angeles, London, Paris, Bienne, Rome2015 'Photo Annual Awards 2015', group exhibition, Teplice Spa Wall Gallery, CZ