"The Guardians" video story

Hello everyone !

I'm Vlad and I'm an artist and storyteller. My medium is photography and my series is The Guardians.

This video explains pretty much everything you need to know about my artistic approach. You can also read the text below.

I ask you today to help me collect $4000 in order to finance a video documentation of the journey from today to my next street exhibition in October 2016.

I cannot officialy or legally announce what it is (patience, I promise to reveal everything in a few weeks), but trust me when I say that it's gonna be really big.

I wanna hire this awesome videographer called Lukas, to follow me in Montreal, Toronto and Philadelphia and film my search for new Guardians, intimate moments with old ones, the installation and the street exhibition  in October. The goal is to produce a 30 minutes video.

Here is a sick video that Lukas did for MURAL Festival 2016:  https://vimeo.com/172468427

For the past 4 years I've financed this whole photo series all by myself, travelling Europe, America and Central America and relying on my friends and strangers hospitality. 

Today, I'm stepping out of my comfort zone and I'm gonna ask you to help me financially. 

I will use your money to pay for:

- the production & editing of the video (MTL, TO, Philly)
- travels and hosting in Philadelphia 
- large vinyle prints in Philadelphia (tbc)

Some dreams are free, this one is not, unfortunately. Please help me make it come true and I promise that I'll be forever grateful.

Love, always.

V

Here is a written explanation of my work:

People pay less and less attention to their environment. They are always in a hurry, they don't allow themselves to spend time with one another. They are constantly looking for ways to “save time and money”, that’s why they’d rather shop in large malls where all types of businesses are centralized instead of encouraging their local shops. 

Yes malls and supermarkets are convenient and they make you save money because small shops cannot compete with large stores on price and variety of selection, but they are also so sterile, impersonal and boring.

THE GUARDIANS was born from my desire to document and pay tribute to the "guardians of urban temples" that we meet everyday without really noticing.

My approach is based on a principle of hazardous perambulation in every city that I visit. The initial idea is to have no more benchmark and enter spontaneously in places where the visual attraction is strong. I like to see every city as a maze in which I enjoy getting lost and finding these treasures.

These places are sometimes magical, overloaded with elements, colours and stories, guarded by these characters who are sometimes touching, funny, quirky, and at times frightening.

The portraits that I take are often the only memory that the Guardian will have of him/herself in their daily environment. This photo can be the only visual record of the existence of this place, the only photographic memory.

Each picture is taken during my first encounter with the Guardian and I don't interfere with the space.
Once contact is established, a link is created or not. Sometimes I leave with a small gift from the person, an anecdote,  an audio recording or just their portrait.

I want people to realize that these places are the heart and soul of our cities. Their temples are filled with passion and stories managed by these keepers of a tradition and a memory.

The Guardians is also an urban installation. I covers empty windows of shops for rent with life-size prints of different Guardians, in order to create an ambiguity in the urban landscape and try to raise awareness on the progressive disappearance of these shops.