DENISA BALAJ

SPACES OF DUALITY: DUOSERIES

Duoseries is a visual research created by juxtaposing photographs in order to define places that would not exist without human manipulation. The association of landscapes and territories, untouched or constructed nature with architectural elements or edifices, emphasizes a specific spatial sensation or concept. The places are imagined to a certain extent, until there’s something intriguing, like an opera house with the roof “opened” to the outside, a city in between massive rocks or even an apartment in a train. Some of the works present objects obtained through the multiplication of an architectonic element and then perceived as monuments or artefacts placed in anonymous or uncanny sites. Each has a main visual or spatial idea, that is manipulated instinctually.

The method of combining is simply placing together two or more images with a clear cut. When the limit line tends to dissolve, the sum of all sceneries forms a whole new image, a system that is ambiguous through its anomalies. With regard to the process, Duoseries is entirely realized by using the mobile phone, from photography, to combining, editing, and publishing. The resulting images are composed of photographs I took with the phone camera, later put together in an application of Instagram, called Layout, and then published on Instagram.

Denisa Balaj is a young architect, originally from Oradea, a small city in Romania. She pursued her academic studies in Bucharest, Vaduz and Mendrisio and continued her practical experience in Chur and Zürich, in Switzerland. Her way of understanding spaces, through photography, gave rise to her Duoseries, a project that does not simply document and put things together, but challenge existing spaces and create new ones.

Check out the complete Duoseries here or here. Follow more of Denisa’s work here.