A Husband in Paris

From lensculture.com:

Photographs and text by Katarina Radovic

Shahab The series of images A Husband in Paris was set out as a playful comment on the idea of marrying abroad for papers, due to political isolation in economically underdeveloped countries. This was a starting point in my work, which, during the course of its progress, acquired a number of other meanings related to the choice of place and the characters photographed.

The scenario is the following: I myself took up the role of a young woman from Eastern Europe in the search of a husband in Paris, the model of a Western “city of dreams“. Walking across the city districts within the period of several weeks, I approached candidates asking them whether they would be willing to “marry me” and what it would look like. After a short introductory “sniffing“, they happily agreed to pose together with me for a snapshot, in which we played the role of a potential couples.

The aesthetic complexity of these staged images surpasses the strictly political aspects and stretches to romantic relationships between possible marriage partners as well as the seduction of the young woman who, in her appointed role, does not hide that she is “in the hurry”.

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