Head On at 107: Dreams The Black Sea

Can a headless horse dream?

What does a headless horse dream of?

My grandpa’s answer was short and clear: ‘He Dreams of The Black Sea’.

Some of the most memorable times I had as a child were the summer times that the whole family used to spend in a small hut on the Black Sea coast. The highlight had always been the mesmerizing stories my grandpa used to tell us about the headless horses, pretty girls and the sea. He was a retired actor who was trapped between his delusions and dreams. I still bear the magic of his stories.

When I visited my birth-land after 25 years, the sea evoked all those memories, interrupting my thoughts and daydreams. This initial visit quickly flourished into a work about the Black Sea coast and its people.

I view my journey as a documentation of life along the coast, and about the mysticism that had existed in my grandpa's stories. I have been roaming over the region, mostly in the southern part, searching for traces of my past, looking for visual notes connecting my present existence to my childhood by the sea and to the sea itself. I pursued an intimate reality in the dreamlike atmosphere that comes from being around the common people of the region and their daily activities, their lives ‘so to speak’.

One sees a dream within the moment of a blink of an eye, they say. Yes a horse dreams. And his dreams wake me up and blend me in colours. So bright, so light.