8 Questions with Anett Polasaki - Magazine Issue02

Anett Posalaki is a selected and featured artist in Al-Tiba9 magazine ISSUE02, interviewed by Mohamed Benhadj about her photographic project GENDER.

It is important how we accommodate our objects and environment in concepts, time and space. How our choices describe us. Photography is therapy, this is how we process our real and imaginary traumas, stories and identities. It’s an unbreakable bond, how life and art reflect on each other. For Anett Posalaki, the intimate reality, which includes her thoughts of gender constructions, is the basis on which she tries to solve the problem of relations inside and outside a personality… Anett Posalaki

Please describe the intention behind your art. How do you successfully express this intention?

With my pictures, my goal is to define the term ’gender-free’ by exploring the spaces around me and by searching for related objects or life situations. It is a kind of self-definition or identity question. In my pictures I carry out a kind of research where, for example, I observe types of organisms that are able to multiply without male and female individuals, outlining that gender is not necessary for existence.

Can you talk a little about your formative years as an artist?

I graduated as a photographer at Moholy-Nagy Art University and after that, I moved to Berlin, where the topic of gender is more vivid and up-to-date. I worked in a gallery in Berlin (FKK - Galerie) and participated in group exhibitions, for example, FKK – Berlin’s The Blind Curator and The Family of No Man at Cosmos Arles.

Where did you get your imagery from (What, If any, Sources did you use)?

My interest in the subject started when I started to explore my own identity, and then I found an article on the Internet about women who live in Albania, called Sworn Virgins. Women who chose to live as men, because of social pressure or forced marriages, they decided to live as virgins and lead their lives as men. From here came the question of comparison in my project.

Your work plays with the placement of the images, memory, interaction between the inside and outside and its relation with the construction of personality. Much of this is filtered through imaginary in relation with your personal life – like to build a statement of your research on a photographic process. Can you talk about that?

My pictures are totally related to my own life, in fact, this is the sort of self-definition that is constantly changing and I'm constantly learning new things about myself.

Your process includes a specific construction of the image, influenced by personal remembering. In other photographic works, you experiment with a mix of geometry, anatomy, and photography to give another representation in this case of a portrait. How can you describe that for our readers?

My pictures are like pieces of my personality, they have to be interpreted as a whole. Each piece is able to describe a small detail about my personality and the constantly changing identity issues.

They say if you could be anything but an artist, don’t be an artist. What career are you neglecting right now by being an artist?

In my childhood, I wanted to be a pianist.

What current series are you working on?

I’m working on a visual diary and besides that, I’m taking pictures of flowers as an act of remembering and I’m also trying myself in fashion photography.

What is your favorite genre of music to listen to while working?

Bonobo, Fakear, Bicep, etc. music with a minimal vocal included.