Jelena Blagović

Born in 1983 in Zagreb. Graduated from the Photographic Department at the School of Applied Arts and Design in Zagreb, after which she studied photography at Istituto Superiore di Fotografia e Arti Visive, Padua, Italy. She continued education in England where she completed the undergraduate and graduate study of art photography at University of Westminster in London, eventually gaining the Master of Photography diploma. She works as an art assistant with the Academy
of Dramatic Arts in Zagreb, Department of Filming, Chair of Photography. She also teaches at the Photographic Department at the School of Applied Arts and Design in Zagreb. She exhibited at numerous exhibitions in England, China and Croatia and is a member of the Croatian Association of Artists of Applied Arts.
Collaborates with numerous artists, newspapers and magazines.

On series Before Me

In the photographic series Before Me, I question my own identity in relationship to my mother, by looking through very palpable material items – her love letters.
I believe that reading others’ love letters is equivalent to a dose of uncivilized and voyeuristic behavior. But I also have feelings that arise from the expectations, the diverse texture of the letters, the smell of old things and the worn-out paper on which they were written. I am also fascinated by the fact they have been kept all these years.
The letters in the series of photographs entitled Before Me were written between 1968 and 1981 and are from my mother’s time of puberty to the first years of her relationship with my father.
During this period there was no Internet, e-mails, sms, chats and other available means of communication that has, as a rule, replaced hand written letters. The speed and superficiality of today’s written communications, as well as the instability of the media, leave almost no space for insights, or experiencing the emotional time-distance for the expressing of feelings. With the new technologies these communications are also almost impossible to preserve and archive as hand-written letters once were.
Another aspect of this project is that it has allowed me to touch on the subtleties of my relationship with my mother, who has opened the door to her own intimacy, and through her letters lets me inside the world of her past romantic feelings. All of this leads me to reevaluate my relationship with her, and get to know one previously unknown part of her character and personality.