Urša Premik - Super Hilda
Super Hilda is the second edition of a project in the making; in it, photographer Urša Premik continues a project of many years, in which she portraitures her grandmother Hilda. If the first edition of the project was composed of portraits capturing spontaneous and random moments of her grandmother's daily routine and performance recordings that revealed the facetious side of Hilda's personality, the author now focuses on completely directed and dramaturgically elaborate scenes. The portraits of Hilda are the result of prudent photographic sessions, in the jargon of the fashion industry the so-called fashion editorials, i.e. photographs intended for publication in fashion and lifestyle magazines that do not only serve for the portrayal of fashionable clothing, but offer identification with a certain story and sell a specific lifestyle. The photographer, who is a professional in the field of fashion photography, takes every advantage of knowing its aesthetic and generic laws and, knowing its strategies and rules, questions the dominant view on the concepts of fashion and beauty. She places her grandmother in the centre of the narrative and assigns her different roles with the help of carefully chosen clothing, ambiance and props. Wearing different kinds of capes and coats Super Hilda partly reminds us of some sort of an anti-hero, eccentric and individual, who prides herself with her “supernatural” power of age, and with a cigarette in her hand represents an antithesis, a deviation and an objection to commercially oriented fashion, promotion of beauty ideals and the phantasm of eternal youth.
The fictional and idealised images of Hilda can also be understood as an alternative manner of the representation of the elderly. Modern society is, apart from turbo capitalism and consumption that reached its peak today, facing drastic demographic changes (it is expected that by 2030 a third of the world’s population will be older than 65). Together with the completely market-oriented cosmetic industry, which recognized new purchasing potential in elderly women, in public discourse age and aging are considered a flaw and imperfection that can be abolished with the appropriate manipulations (e.g. the use of the magical anti-aging formula). Most representations of age show a skewed view of the nature of age and aging themselves. Many (including the elderly) understand age and aging as something superfluous, unattractive or even shameful and with it the elderly are becoming an increasingly marginalized group, pushed on the edge of society. It is becoming increasingly apparent that we need a new visual and rhetoric paradigm that will address the demographic changes and accept the challenges of the aging population. Photography can serve as the carrier of the message and the imagination that opens new possibilities of interpretation and ways of reading. The exhibition Super Hilda can thus be understood as a rehearsal in the changing of the predominantly negative thinking, because it offers a representation of an elderly lady, filled with humour that surpasses stereotypes and prejudice. It deals with age as a natural part of identity and reminisces about times when age meant an honorary status of sages and chiefs; the privilege that the elderly, these dusty heroes, lost almost completely in the modern society – the right to be old.
mag. Jasna Jernejšek
Makeup: Katja Kolar
Hair : Loui Ferry
Styling: Sare Bilalli
More info: ursapremik.com
