31.3.2010
The audience award worth HRK 15,000 selected among forty exhibited works of art from the pool of 232 entries at the competition T-HTnagrada@msu.hr went to the artist Tanja Dabo and her photographic installation “Fear“ displayed at the exhibition having the same title as the competition. During the exhibition 1400 visitors voted and the majority decided that the artwork of Tanja Dabo, an artist who moved from Rijeka to Zagreb where she currently lives and works at the Department of Graphics of the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb as a lecturer.
The installation Fear consists of 42 color photographs which make a sort of collage or narrative string, although there is neither beginning nor end, both in terms of composition and meaning. The photographs are simple at first glance, without highlighted focus, theme or motif. But, the photographs are accompanied with texts inspired by genuine “testimonies“ such as: “When I was very little, I was very afraid of my mum and dad.“ Yet, the artist does not reveal the identity of “witnesses“, friends, close persons or colleagues and in this way suggests that such experience is common and universal: both in images and words. It is up to the observer to take an active role and contemplate her work: from recognizing the scene/experience to identification. Judging by choice of the audience, the artist has managed to convey the emotional experience of fear known to every person.