Ilinca Vânău
I am a twenty five year old photographer from Romania. When I turned sixteen I received a 35mm camera from my father. A couple of years later, I received a Rolleiflex from an old photographer in my hometown. With growing enthusiasm, I started by taking portraits of family and friends and often traveled to remote parts of country, camera in hand. The mere existence of photographs, as transfigured moments that I can revisit, is something that never ceases to humble my heart. I aim to create single images that have a wholesome quality and carry in them a sense of restoring intimacy.
For the past five years, I have lived in Scotland where I graduated with a degree in Social Anthropology and Film Studies from the University of St Andrews. If in Romania my passion for photography was significant only on a personal level, in Scotland it led to a journey of learning about curating and publishing. From 2011 to 2014, I joined the editorial team of a photography publication, Stereoscope Magazine. In the UK, my work was featured in several exhibitions, at magazine launches and conferences as well as in art installations which brought together photography, video and sound recordings.
My work often relies on two different kinds of moments that prompt me to take photographs – that of togetherness, of sharing a heightened sense of presence with another person or that of being outside of something mysterious, as a witness to something both opaque and enchanting. For me, photography is also a practice of self-knowledge and reflection, in which the images are never static documents but unpredictable portals.