Exhibitions
Beam of light through the lens, poetry of reality
Collaboration between MakeDox and the Biology Institute – Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics
We love wandering and dreaming, sure we do. Is there anything nicer to wish for ourselves while in this world? There are times when we can hardly grasp all that reality around us may offer – colors, smells, sounds, flavors, textures, streams, laughter and cries, gaze, light, darkness, vastness, defiance, doom, serenity, warmth, cold. Whirlwind that thrust and never stops… We feel that our eyes are hungry, that the mind is restless and the body tireless. We wander and wonder what’s beyond all things visible, who speaks through these voices, what’s beneath the surface. And finally, what should we do with all this vigor? Some would say ‘I just take my camera and go shooting!’ Others grab their pen or brush (better said, lap top) and don’t leave their room for days, while some interpret the world through sounds and voices…
And what about the curious scientists, those eager souls who observe and experiment with the fragments of reality? Those who with unreserved commitment translate this world in their laboratory premises, then leave us speechless, astonished, puzzled, horrified but almost always saved. What a joy to have science! When one is scientifically literate, one sees the world through a different prism, delving into the layers of the great story. The story of humanity is a story of ideas, beams of light that break through darkness.
One such story is this year’s collaboration of MakeDox and the Institute of Biology of the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics in Skopje which have jointly created the visual identity of the 11th festival edition. By presenting microscopic images of the onion and its inside, our creative collaborators introduced us to their fantastic and for us barely familiar world and reminded us, once again, why the onion is the symbol of our documentary story.
We started talking about the lens – a tiny piece of glass that revolutionized civilization in the 17th century with the then newly invented optical instruments and changed the world(view) and knowledge entirely. We are glad that we can share this admiration though it seems like we’re standing on opposite sides when it comes to professional interests and profiles. The light through our film lens captures the images of life in front of us, exposes a new layer above and beyond existing layers – another story to tell. The beams through the microscopic lens penetrate further, disperse the clouds above things visible, the thought of human mind’s splendor moves you, its age-old tendency to enlighten other, unknown dimensions.
The talk on the lens stops but once we get back to our office in the Old Bazaar, we continue discussing and then look for the definition in a dictionary. So it goes – lens, a transparent body enclosed by smooth spherical surfaces or one spherical and the other flat. Lens, a transparent body through which light is refracted. Light, may it fade away so that we could dream more.
What a joy to have science, what a joy to have film!