Explosion of light!
These are images of people gathered in the city. Sometimes to express joy, sometimes to express sorrow, sometimes to express anger, and sometimes to show solidarity. They’ve illuminated the nights. Flash in photography is often used to reveal, to uncover. But here, a strange form of burning occurs, where subject’s face is obliterated. Here, we’re confronted with people drowned in light, whilst making it difficult or even impossible to identify or recognize any single individual. Here, it seems the light itself has become prominent and accentuated.
Simultaneously, the city also becomes visible. The city, in fact, is the very fabric that embraces these scattered and refracted lights. At the same time, these lights attempt to make the city explicit, to claim it, and finally to illuminate it. But where is the limit of this ‘illumination’?
We can imagine a spectrum: from vague and misty to clear and bright, and ultimately, burning, an explosion of light. However, this collection of photos deconstructs and defamiliarizes the word ‘burning’ since in this collection, it becomes a tool for preserving individuals from the terror of the police and militant groups. Recognizing the faces and identities of those participating in these gatherings can be troublesome for them. Without light, they cannot be seen. With light, they can be seen but this could put them in danger. In the moment of explosion, in the moment of faces burning, it’s as if the ‘collective face’ of the people, for a fleeting moment, illuminates the face of the city: a brief, transient moment that becomes the blessing of the art of photography. This is the very face of politics. This is the eternal face of the people in their moment of brilliance.
