…a temple
…a vessel
…a shell
…a garden
…a wonderland
…a battleground
…a cage
…an art
…an engine
…an illusion
…an instrument
…a prison
…a gift from god
…a party

My body, my vessel, me. I did not know how to nurture it, how to please it, I didn’t even try to do so – for so long I was at real war with my body. I tortured it, I tested the limits of its mortality on more than one occasion, ignored it, gave it away, made it sick, hated it, disapproved it, wanted to get out of it, wanted to scrape it off.

I can’t remember when and how this split happened, but I know when it started to heal. I remember my decision to stay alive, in this world of physical, present in this body of mine. I remember that decision, as I was standing on the very edge of my abyss (sitting on the bench in front of the hospital), holding a paper with results that looked so final (they weren’t), deciding there and then to end that war in any way possible.

So I’ve started to build a bridge over this schizophrenic void with dream-like substances: a sensation of sun and salt on my naked skin; a memory of my mother’s hand combing my hair; that feeling when you shake off the day while you’re slipping underneath clean, cold sheets; or a feeling of her naked body intertwined with mine, as we melt together crossing the line of sleep.

Some years ago I’ve asked Ines to make a series of captures of my nude body. I was ready to see myself through the eyes of the Other. What is my body revealing of me? How much will I, as an observer in this hall of mirrors, recognize myself – watching my body from the outside, through filters and lenses, through Ines?
Here is the result…

(text written by: Ivona Ivković)

Photographs were taken in Zagreb squat Medika in September 2015.