Poetry in photography

Manama : Photography is a powerful visual language. For Marija Gluscevic, the concepts involved in her work and the inspirations she captures pushing her take more photos. “Photography has physical, emotional and social dimension. It has the ability to see and capture the most sophisticated tangibles in our lives. My photography is about experience, exploration, journey and poetry,” Marija says.

“I prefer to use objects that correspond to situation, emotion or thought by using its shape, colour or structure. I do not interfere with the object but only manipulate it by testing its potential within a certain concept,” explains Marija, who grew up in Belgrade, Serbia. At an early age, Marija wrote poems and won several awards in Serbia. 

A graduate in International Law, her journey into the world of photography began after her arrival in the Kingdom. She honed her skills in photography here. 

In fact, her career was focused on telecommunications where she was a Risk Manager and Editor in an Intranet editorial team. Marija was also engaged with legal consultancies for ‘Exit’ music festival, one of the major European festivals of its kind.

She was also involved in the creative concepts of the festival. Her professional career came to an end when she moved to Bahrain due to her husband’s professional engagements in the Kingdom. A mother of three-year-old girl, Marija has done three joint photo exhibitions so far.

“I was always interested in interacting with the world around me with the urge to express how I see and feel about it. Lawyer vocation gave me good structure for the deep understanding of background processes of the modern world. My imagination put more quality in exploring it,” she says.

“I started photography years ago but felt it not mature enough compared to writing poetry. It is an internal kind of process with many good and wrong aspects, efforts and insights. After coming to Bahrain, I felt that I have to portray the emotions and expressions not in words, but through photography, so that I can convey my poetry through my photos,” she comments. “I am trying to make photos which would not remain as an echo but to make the viewers shout back.” 

Marija recognises that gaining her professional career in law and ending up in the Kingdom are the factors that count in shaping her creative individuality.

Marija has showcased 12 photographs with the concept of artistic exposure through Instagram in Malja’s “Double Tap 2” Exhibition. She also showcased three photographs, which were a part of her “The Palm Crust Stories”, in the mixed media Malja’s “Call Out” exhibition. 

She recently showcased her photograph “Crowd” at Malja’s “Photography Open Call”, where her photo explores social structure, relations and appearance in modern society.

Speaking about Malja’s “Photography Open Call” launch, Marija elaborates: “In the photo “Crowd,” I’ve used clothespins randomly spread and captured as they fell. My idea was to show people, communication, group, individualism, closeness, solitude, random encounters, interactions and our hidden thoughts. People were represented with the clothespins, I used colour as the identity, shape as a stand and a barrier, random fall as modern way of life and communication showing the uniqueness of the social structure and environment.”

“My inspiration lies in beauty of life, people and nature, in constant learning, new encounters and Bahrain; its heritage and beauty. I am constantly exposing myself to the outer world and awaiting the ‘reaction’. In future, I would like to explore photographing people and express “the poetry” that lies within each and every one of us,” Marija points out. 

“I would definitely love to sing about Bahrain. The message I would like to send to others is that, the beauty lies in the eyes of a beholder but it works in both ways,” the shutterbug concludes.