Dana Popa Review

This image shows a colour photograph of a girl and a man leaning against a red car, the girl wears white and is slightly overexposed due to the sun shining on her, making her prominent in the photograph. The man is pouring a drink and wears swimming trunks. The car is parked under a patch of trees with the sun streaming through the branches. This photograph almost fills the frame of Popa’s image but for a glimpse of the dark wooden surface it sits on and the bare wall it is propped against. The photograph is slightly cropped by the framing of the image at the right and on the left there is a dark gap, this framing places the girl in the centre of the image.

The photograph is from a body of work titled not Natasha that documents the experiences of sex-trafficked women from Moldova and the families who await their return. The girl in this image was sex-trafficked but is believed to have escaped, the photograph in the image can now be understood as a family photograph from the past. By photographing this photograph Popa emphasizes the distance of the girl in the original image; it is a trace of a trace, the girl is not tangible but it is as if her existence is validated by this image. In his essay Beyond the Lens Mark Sealy wrote that ‘The portraits of those who can only wait and the photographs they cling to – of those that have been trafficked – become tragic icons of hope, as the person who has departed will never again fit the image that is held up for us to observe.’ This poignant observation is a succinct description of the intention of this image.

Popa shot this image on 35mm colour film and printed it quite large for the exhibition. Mark Sealy wrote that the use of colour was a ‘deliberate turn away from the gritty and distant realism associated with black-and-white documentary photography. Colour brings the viewer closer to the victim and effectively closes the distance between them and us.’ The use of fine quality prints and the gallery as a stage for this harrowing topic has its ethical issues but I personally feel that this form of presentation fits the type of image being shown. The photographs are quiet, not acting as evidence or proof but as ‘signifiers of emptiness, waiting, emotional damage and external harm.’ (Mark Sealy) The images are strangely more compelling for not being forced; the time Popa spent building relationships with the girls and the families is evident and there is an openness about the exhibition that allows a viewer to spend time with the images, there is nothing frantic about them, which makes the experience of looking at them somehow more real.

Freya Kruczenyk