(performance photo series)

(In) visible me … Or a kind of “I” put in parentheses… is an attempt to explore the play between essence and appearance, between various levels of self-awareness. The red mannequin distillates my own frustrations, denials, flaws, disappointments, disillusionments, inadequacies, preconceptions… in short, defects.

This characteristics must, or should bee, remain hidden, in order to mask what we really are, in order to be able to show ourselves to the world in a state of acceptability, which aims to admiration.

However, unfortunately, no matter how much we want to detach our self from the “red mannequin”, he is there all the time, he doesn’t leave, only the distance and the relationship with the fake real body changes. The reality denies the existence of the unreal, and then accepts it, admires it, appropriates it, desires it, hates it, and wants to take its place.

So the question I ask with this project is what reality is and what is fiction?

A relationship of complicity develops between the body and the body image. The active body should be the dominant one, but the mannequin, the image, becomes dominant. Even dismembered, he continues to exercise his „authority.” I am not sure what the source that gives him visual strength is. It could be the color, stature or masculinity or a combination of them.

Flavia Lupu, 2011