The sky above Fojhar, a village near Srebrenica  (2013)

The sky above Fojhar, a village near Srebrenica  (2013)

Still image, as 35mm slide, projected into the exhibition space from outside the gallery.
Dimensions variable

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The sky above Fojhar, a village near Srebrenica  (2013) is a slide projection of a single image of a section of sky derived from cropping a low resolution image found in a Google Image search.  The latter shows a road through a landscape in Fojhar with a road sign indicating the direction of Srebrenica (in the Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina). Chodzko has cropped this picture to focus on a section of clear blue sky and some very ‘innocent’ looking clouds, as though ‘cutting off’ to contemplate their beauty, averting attention from anything more troubling.  (The Bosnian war, the genocide at Srebrenica (1995) , our psychological blindspot in relation to it and the horror associated with this haunt the background of several of Chodzko’s works).
The sky above Fojhar… functions as the final work in Adam Chodzko’s installation Room for Laarni, Image Moderator (2013) which collectively explores the experience of being psychologically overwhelmed by the process of relentlessly viewing imagery flowing between communities. Chodzko researches this through trying to empathise with the character of Laarni, a remote image moderator for a social media site.  Chodzko imagines Laarni is filtering (using various devices within the exhibition: eg;  Mask Filter, I See Through Every Image , Same etc) a number of categories of image into groups, or folders, on her computer screen  (Too, and Sleepers and Suddenly we all Began… ).
Suddenly we all began… , a series of circus posters pasted to the exterior of a gallery window is somehow pushed beyond the screen and The sky above Fojhar, a village near Srebrenica is even at one further remove from the gallery interior, back-projecting onto Suddenly we all began…barely visible, although turning the circus posters into a form of stained glass.  It is a hidden yet excessive image (physically and conceptually just outside the main exhibition). As an image it is almost empty of content yet full of implication. Perhaps it occurs where Laarni has had enough.

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Room for Laarni, Image Moderator catalogue
Conversation between Jennifer Higgie, Andrew Renton, Adam Chodzko
Editor Andrew Renton. Published November,  2013
Download pdf of catalogue