Fotograf Magazine

Finding a symbol/character, aspect, that is meant to give testimony to a certain cultural milieu – whether a local or a temporal definition – is tied to the act of balancing between an objective and a subjective opinion. Fulfilling the assignment develops from the general, when even an independent observer is meant to be interested in the resulting product, while at the same time recognising what the given thing/object speaks to. He/she should have their own view however, one based on preferences determined by the artist. These preferences may derive from different bases – they are based on emotionally coloured memories and one’s own experiences.

Jana Šašková’s (nee Šprinclová) photographs came about as one of her semester projects, assigned to students in the Photography Atelier at the Academy of Arts, Arcgitecture and Design, where Jana currently studies in her fifth year. The exact assignment was as follows: Up-to-date aspects of the 1980’s. The fact that the majority of current students at the Photography Atelier were born in the 1980’s supposes they will have a specific relationship to that period – it’s a distant one, but still however it was a part of their lives. It was a time covered by the old regime, tied to the ideology of the day, drowned out by change, revolution. The students‘ job was to find, using sources from that period, one aspect that spoke of or testified about the 1980’s. Yet they had to bring it up to date and find a contemporary parallel thereto.