Documenting the relation between men and nature, the photographic duo Synchrodogs produces hallucinatory images, inspired by their dreams and our planet.
Roman Noven and Tania Shcheglova have formed, since 2008, the Ukrainian photographic duo Synchrodogs. An alliance they always deemed necessary. “If you have this artistic streak in you it is quite impossible to escape your urge to create, so we just followed that unavoidable path”, they explain. From the start, the two artists have been producing personal projects as well as commissions for fashion brands, and keep developing their own sense of identity. “Our work in an intimate exploration of Earth, of nature”, they say.
A theme that has followed their steps for 12 years, resisting their creative transformation, their evolution, their need to renew themselves. “Over time, we have become more committed. Our productions are now staged and planned, compared to early works that were of a more documentary nature”, the artists tell us. A knowledge of the medium that enabled them to highlight their ecologic convictions, and even to immerse themselves into a mastered surrealism.
The trace a dream leaves behind
“Over the last 10 years we’ve developed our own night time meditation technique, trying to catch the moment between wakefulness and sleep. We’d usually wake ourselves up in the middle of the night to make a note of what we had just seen, gathering our dreams to be staged afterwards”
. Inspired by the non-REM sleep, during which some people experience hallucinations, the photographers try to capture with their cameras the trace a dream leaves behind. A body of work that carried them to the borders of reality, thus revealing a taste for abstraction.
Nature and body merge together, in Synchrodogs’s creations. “We focus on their complex relationship, their interdependency, and the urge to go back to the natural world, which is much wider than the cities we live in”, they say. Yet, mankind’s presence, either ghostly or out of place, contrasts with its environment. “The intention is always to make people appear as something abstract, existing only in relation to the Earth”, they add. In this illusory world, strange fabrics decorate the trees, the landscapes. The models’ naked skin is not viewed as sensual, but vulnerable. It defines the forms of bodies, and gets buried under matters – natural like artificial. Turned into mere objects, men stop being predators and hide among elements, becoming one with our planet. A hallucinatory universe filled with hope and creativity.
© Synchrodogs
