There is so much inside of a circle and so much outside of a circle. That almost magical circumference resonates also with connection. It is not a spiral that expands or contracts; a circle is more structured, precise, contained, and carries the weight of philosophy, a desire for perfection, a definite mapping. A circle links macrocosm and microcosm; it is a harmonic structure of the universe. A circle does not meander, it is not flawed by chance or accident. A circle means what it is, an infinite loop between me and you.

Bara Prasilova’s Circle series is a link between the seemingly real and the seemingly unreal. The almost divine perfection of process and of image is countered by the fantastical or really, surreal. In Without Clouds (2021), a young girl’s impossibly long braid encircles a boy, a ruckenfigur facing an infinite blue horizon bisected by a white wall far in the distance. This is inside and outside, it is about distance and closeness, it is about being with and being apart from. It is about gender or genders, it is about expectations and dreams. These themes can also be seen in Touching (2021), which shows a young woman and a young man, each with an arm in a sling. They are presented frontally, and equally, their fingers touch, against a background of a complicated split concrete stairway under a cloud strewn sky. The figures in Touching could almost be those in Without Clouds, twelve or so years later. Such a pairing speaks not only generally to a circle of life, but more powerfully to the complications of human interaction, particularly along the lines of gender and age. These are aspects that can be seen in other image in the series such as On and On (2021) showing a strong woman dressed in powerful red and high heel black boots holding on her shoulders a young girl holding an impossibly heavy looking black barbell. A stairway ascends in the right background, and again, there is a brilliant blue sky filled with billowy white clouds. A visual delight in colors and opposing texture, the image is rife with surreal associations, such as the impossibility of act of holding the barbell, yet at the same time the image speaks to the ideas of power, strength, age, motherhood, sex, gender roles, and not only the weight of gender roles but their subversion. The young girl bears the weight of being a young girl, but she also is able to carry it. The barbell may be a burden, but it is also an indicator of strength. Again, will this young girl become the woman who is holding her in her shoulders? Is this her mother? Is this the circle—mother to daughter, daughter to mother—generation to generation? Or is this image simply a metaphor for the strength of being female? Prasilova does not give answers, she keeps us spinning around and around thinking about what it means.

—Thomas Beachdel

In this photograph from my ongoing project Circles I’m processing the behavioural patterns I sense around me and show how they look in my world of symbols and fantasies.

This is the opening photograph to my new project “Circles”.

In this series I’m processing the behavioural patterns I sense around me and show how they look in my world of symbols and fantasies.

A photograph & short film on the topic of biological clock is my vision of a woman, of time, cyclicality and balance.

Below you can also watch the behind-the-scenes video that shows the whole process of my work.

White gloves. A costume of innocence, a seeming protection separating us from reality and preventing us from leaving actual imprints of who we really are. Gloves laced up with a black ribbon, turning our own hands into hostages.

If we pretend to be better than we are, will we be able to applaud ourselves in the future?

From the series Circles

Love symbolised by water. Trying to embrace it and keep it for oneself. If only just for a while. But the water doesn’t belong to anyone. Just as love. Both water and love have to be given the chance to flow in order to keep everything within it alive.

Waiting for the right moment. The moment of growing up and having enough bravery to touch the adult world.

In the usual sense the word ‘Evolve’ means a development, a sequence of events, referring forward to the future. To me, the future is strongly connected to the past and I need to explore my history to be able to make a step forward.

Through my photographs I have been trying to understand human relationships and connections: long hair symbolises the invisible strings we use to strap somebody to us or, perhaps, the opposite, to let somebody loose. They are the threads of our emotions, worries and fears that we are affraid to loosen like hair.

This series was made for Hasselblad Masters Book published by teNeues.

This series is about being balanced inside and dont let your surroundings influence you so much. We all have the ability to fly (figuratively speaking) but from some strange reason we often choose to fall down.

I was working on this collection very intuitively and from distance – I can see that these photographs subconsciously showed me my state of mind.

The fog around is an inability to see a whole picture. And the fact that we can’t properly see what is around us – it doesn’t mean that the things themselves are not clear.

This series is about being balanced inside and dont let your surroundings influence you so much. We all have the ability to fly (figuratively speaking) but from some strange reason we often choose to fall down.

I was working on this collection very intuitively and from distance – I can see that these photographs subconsciously showed me my state of mind.

The fog around is an inability to see a whole picture. And the fact that we can’t properly see what is around us – it doesn’t mean that the things themselves are not clear.

This series is about being balanced inside and dont let your surroundings influence you so much. We all have the ability to fly (figuratively speaking) but from some strange reason we often choose to fall down.

I was working on this collection very intuitively and from distance – I can see that these photographs subconsciously showed me my state of mind.

The fog around is an inability to see a whole picture. And the fact that we can’t properly see what is around us – it doesn’t mean that the things themselves are not clear.

This series is about being balanced inside and dont let your surroundings influence you so much. We all have the ability to fly (figuratively speaking) but from some strange reason we often choose to fall down.

I was working on this collection very intuitively and from distance – I can see that these photographs subconsciously showed me my state of mind.

The fog around is an inability to see a whole picture. And the fact that we can’t properly see what is around us – it doesn’t mean that the things themselves are not clear.

This series is about being balanced inside and dont let your surroundings influence you so much. We all have the ability to fly (figuratively speaking) but from some strange reason we often choose to fall down.

I was working on this collection very intuitively and from distance – I can see that these photographs subconsciously showed me my state of mind.

The fog around is an inability to see a whole picture. And the fact that we can’t properly see what is around us – it doesn’t mean that the things themselves are not clear.

This little girl has always wished to be the most beautiful for her parents. She promised herself to became a beauty queen when she grows up. And that day she stopped growing. Except for her hair – that hair she considered a sign of her beauty.

Our body is sometimes wiser than our head and tries to save us from bad decisions, those which cover our unhealthy desire to be accepted and loved.

We are all born with the gift to see and hear and we keep suppressing it as we grow up. The adults tell their kids that what they see and hear is not real. And these kids start to believe it and replicate this pattern later on with their own kids, and so it goes on and on.

We all deliberately decide to force the fantasies out of our minds and forget what was so obvious and effortless to us when we were young.

We are all born with the gift to see and hear and we keep suppressing it as we grow up. The adults tell their kids that what they see and hear is not real. And these kids start to believe it and replicate this pattern later on with their own kids, and so it goes on and on.

We all deliberately decide to force the fantasies out of our minds and forget what was so obvious and effortless to us when we were young.

We are all born with the gift to see and hear and we keep suppressing it as we grow up. The adults tell their kids that what they see and hear is not real. And these kids start to believe it and replicate this pattern later on with their own kids, and so it goes on and on.

We all deliberately decide to force the fantasies out of our minds and forget what was so obvious and effortless to us when we were young.

We are all born with the gift to see and hear and we keep suppressing it as we grow up. The adults tell their kids that what they see and hear is not real. And these kids start to believe it and replicate this pattern later on with their own kids, and so it goes on and on.

We all deliberately decide to force the fantasies out of our minds and forget what was so obvious and effortless to us when we were young.

We are all born with the gift to see and hear and we keep suppressing it as we grow up. The adults tell their kids that what they see and hear is not real. And these kids start to believe it and replicate this pattern later on with their own kids, and so it goes on and on.

We all deliberately decide to force the fantasies out of our minds and forget what was so obvious and effortless to us when we were young.