An internal struggle often goes unnoticed - we see this every day with more and more people struggling with depression, anxiety, anorexia and bulimia. These kinds of mental states can often be shoved off or not taken seriously enough, while most of the time not noticed at all. We as a generation have to start standing up to this and trying to make a difference. The media an especially Gossip Media is just one of the issues surrounding this topic. We need to start taking responsibility for ourselves and not taking what the media has to say blindly.
These photographs by Laura Zankoul are picturesque scenes of avoidance and an escapism from the horrors of everyday life when suffering from one of these diseases. She captures the whimsical essence of what it must be like to have to fight with your inner self and you mind on a daily basis.
Laura Zankoul’s practice of fine arts photography primarily appeared as a need to escape the binding life of the cubicle during her first full-time job. This need to evade reality was translated in her imagery: her compositions are contemporary fairy tales, which explore the charm and mystery of the human psyche. Whimsical and playful, they represent an attempt to invent new worlds, to push against the boundaries of our reality and escape the monotony of everyday life. The characters inhabiting Zankoul’s work are anonymous and timeless, universal symbols existing within a fantastical and surreal landscape.
Tea Cups, is one of her collections, where the heroine is trapped, yet transported to a whimsical land of imagination and wonder through the Giant Tea Cup. It is a place to hide and yet a place to dream of all the wonderful imaginings that a person could dream of. While filled with many opportunities the outcomes could be detrimental and unwelcome.
