Dana Popa Review by Deri.

We are informed that the exhibition 'Not Natasha' was made over the last four years. Dana Popa's photagraphic series documents the lives of sex trafficked women from Moldova. We are told that Natasha is the name given to Eastern European looking prostitutes, we are also told they hate it. Popa's images are all of former sex slaves who have survived to tell their stories, this review will be dealing with the aesthetic and photographic merits of the work and will NOT be a critique on sex trafficking.

The image i have chosen to critique shows green grassy expanse with two young women reclining back and smoking cigarettes. The grass in the foreground is not in focus and the object of our focus is drawn to the first women, her head is resting on a pillow or towel and her gaze is directed skyward. Her face shows the faintest vestige of a smile and she has a slightly wistful look in her eyes. The whole image has a tranquil dreamy quality to feel, simply two friends relaxing in the park, smoking and watching the world go by with not a care in the world.

Within the context of the series we learn that the women have escaped their life of bondage and sexual servitude and reside in shelters away from their previous sex trafficked existence. This changes the way we read the image, and adds a certain poignancy, the look on the womans face is transformed into one of deep enjoyment for a longed day, we are invited to imagine the many times she has stared vacantly at the ceiling whilst with a 'client' perhaps envisioning the very view she is enjoying now.

As a series i found 'Not Natasha' wholly unremarkable, resorting as it did to hackneyed cliched tugs on our heartstrings. For me there was nothing that set these images apart, and in fact the style and format is now so familiar that repetition of these signs has stripped them of meaning. Images such as these are so prevalent that their power is negated and they simply become an addition to the morass of cliched imagery surrounding this topic. Indeed these images could have been stills from any number of Channel 5 documentaries such is the well worn visual path down which they tread.

This is not to say that I advocate any facet of this vile and abhorrent form of slavery, more that i take issue with lazy photographic practice which seems to me to build wholly on the stereotype it is attempting to illustrate and dispel.