Elena Chergilanova

Part 1: The image

Elena Chergilanova is a graphic designer and visual artist, working with photography, video and artist books.  

In her photography practice, Elena often relies on serendipity and surprises. A few years ago, she became passionate about the film soup technique, in which the captured film is dipped in a mixture of teas, acids, alcohol, detergents, etc. before being developed, which causes different colors and textures to appear on the final image, sometimes altering it beyond recognition. This same arbitrariness, she says, is what draws artists and designers to experiment with different printing techniques, and she uses her participation in the exhibition to trace how this next layer of unpredictability brings the image to life.