Alexandra Serrano Photography

Links & Websites

2011-11-24T05:36:00.001-08:00

wwww.alexandraserrano.com

www.festival-circulations.com

www.maps2011.co.uk

Book

2011-05-21T08:07:00.000-07:00

Between Finger and Thumb

Self published photo book

Anatomy of a city

2011-02-17T09:58:00.000-08:00

"Form is emptiness; emptiness is also form.

Emptiness is no other than form; form is no other than emptiness."

The Heart Sutra.

Photomonth 2010

2010-09-15T03:12:00.001-07:00

Amnesia

2009-08-25T08:02:00.000-07:00

" We stand upon the brink of a precipice. We peer into the abyss – we grow sick and dizzy. Our first impulse is to shrink from the danger. Unaccountably we remain. By slow degrees our sickness, and dizziness, and horror, become merged in a cloud of unnameable feeling. By gradations, still more imperceptible, this cloud assumes shape, as did the vapor from the bottle out of which arose the genius in the Arabian Nights. But out of this our cloud upon the precipice's edge, there grows into palpability, a shape, far more terrible than any genius, or any demon of a tale, and yet it is but a thought, although a fearful one, and one which chills the very marrow of our bones with the fierceness of the delight of its horror. It is merely the idea of what would be our sensations during the sweeping precipitancy of a fall from such a height. And this fall – this rushing annihilation – for the very reason that it involves that one most ghastly and loathsome of all the most ghastly and loathsome images of death and suffering which have ever presented themselves to our imagination – for this very cause do we now the most vividly desire it. And because our reason violently deters us from the brink, therefore, do we the more impetuously approach it. There is no passion in nature so demoniacally impatient, as that of him, who shuddering upon the edge of a precipice, thus meditates a plunge. To indulge for a moment, in any attempt at thought, is to be inevitably lost; for reflection but urges us to forbear, and therefore it is, I say, that we cannot. If there be no friendly arm to check us, or if we fail in a sudden effort to prostrate ourselves backward from the abyss, we plunge, and are destroyed."

The Imp of The Perverse,Edgar Allan Poe

Through this body of work, I have explored the notion of the subconscious and the mechanism of dreams through which one accesses psychical reality. The series takes us on a dream-like journey, a travel through the mind as we enter the subject's subconscious. Amnesia explores our most hidden desires and reflects upon our unconscious attraction towards death while our conscious self constantly fights for survival. What one might consider being the epitome of human nature. Although personal, as based on one of my most recurrent dream, the series portrays a range of emotions from fear to anxiety and guilt to relief, feelings we're all familiar with and to which many can relate.

Postcode War

2009-07-08T02:15:00.000-07:00

Once an Arcadian suburb of grand houses and conservatories, Hackney declined into a zone of dodgy asylums and dirty industry. Persistently reinvented, it has become a symbol of inner city chaos, crime and poverty. A borough of violence, home to a young and diverse population living on the fringes of society, expressing its anger through gunshots and sheds of blood.Today, Hackney has become the epicentre of gang culture and the battle ground of two violent street gangs: the Hackney Man Dem and the Tottenham Man Dem. Brought together through their hatred of one another the two gangs developed a feud which alarmingly recalls the Shakespearian drama of Romeo and Juliette.

Over the last 13 years the streets of Hackney have witnessed endless attacks costing the lives of hundreds of teenagers. Jumping from estate to estate, these youths perpetuate what seems to be an endless quest for revenge while defending the honour of their postcodes.

The project depicts various crimes scenes throughout the borough of Hackney, where gang members have violently lost their lives over the last 12 years, since January 1997, when the conflict initially started.

January 5, 1997
2am, Upper Clapton Road

August 5, 2001
11.20pm, Rossington Street

February 17, 2007
5am, Hommerton High Street

November 14, 2007
10pm, Smalley Close Estate

December 15, 2007
11.50pm, Somerford Estate

December 17, 2008
9.25pm, Shellness Community Centre

January 30, 2008
6.15pm, Fellows Court

February 21, 2009
9.50pm, Lamb Lane