Lena Aliper was born in 1985 of mostly Ukrainian and German blood and grew up in a constructivist neighborhood of Moscow. The turbulence of the post-Perestroika capital blended in perfectly with an almost classical education Lena received in high school. Her formative years saw her reading first The Iliad and Divine Comedy at the age of 12 in the days of political and economic instability followed by reading Jack Kerouac well hidden under the desk during history classes at 15.
Lena picked up a 35mm Canon (now stolen) when she was 20, obtained an MA in French literature at 23 after penning a thesis on Raymond Queneau. Then she came to London, having accepted an offer to do a post-graduate course in photography at LCC, which ended up leading her on to earn an MA in photographic studies from the University of Westminster. Lena lives wherever she is lucky enough to, has a remote day job in computational biophysics and is currently working on a novel about dysfunctionality.
WEBSITE: http://lenaaliper.net/illbe.html
SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS: Instagram @enfleurs’
Book purchase: I’ll Be Your New York was published as a book in 2011 by AtemBooks and is available to purchase.
Patricia Lanza:Discuss the title: I’ll Be Your New York in this photographic series?
How did you come to arrive at the title, since these are photographs taken in london?
Lena Aliper: It is essentially a slightly altered title of the Velvet Underground’s “I’ll be your mirror”. As for New York, it has a rich history of being represented in literature, film, etc., be that modernist novels, iconic 1960s films or 1980s no wave, and for me it was that partially fictional unattainable place. So, the title could essentially be translated as “I’ll be an entire dream place / poetic reality surrounding you”
What was your process in the making of this series, I’ll Be Your New York ?
Discuss the technical aspect as well: film format etc and why you choose to shoot Polaroid.
Lena Aliper: I was experimenting with a Polaroid Land, and was fascinated by the resulting photographs, as they had a certain “found object” quality about them. At that time, I was enamored with André Breton’s novels and especially the concept of le hasard objectif, an accident that was in fact meant to be, on a somewhat magical level. So black and white Polaroids seemed to be a perfect medium to convey this mood and feeling, one of drifting through the streets hoping to walk into something extraordinary. Apart from the Polaroids, the photobook I made of “I’ll be your New York” contains text fragments meant to feel incomplete and yet, on another level, still complete, exploring these two sensations (found object and hasard objectif) via the verbal discourse.
All images reflect a city without the absence of people, some images are personal of two people, what was this addition and meaning for the story ?
Lena Aliper :To me the bodies (of “I” and “you”) and the city felt inseparable from each other, made part of the same landscape (that exists on a lyrical and visceral level) through the visual continuity across the series.
What are you working on currently ?
Lena Aliper:I mostly focus on my writing projects these days. However, seeing that I have not been able to choose between the visual and verbal discourses, I intend to make my other series, “A Jack and Jill Story”, happen as a photobook. I am also doing research for a fictionalized-autobiography-based project under the working title “Apophenia” that draws on my experience of EMDR therapy and making sense of the past.
