Starting from the fairy tale, as the predominant set of values and lessons that individual adopts from the outer world at the earliest age, and through the questioning of the personal formative process and the retrospective considerations of emotional maturity, the exhibition Once Upon A Dream questions the topic of self-knowledge and personal split between fantasy and reality. When at the earliest age, at Lacan's stade du miroir , an infant identifies itself with its own characteristics and representation, the nucleus of the Ideal Self is being constructed too, as a an idea of perfect being that we wish to see as our own and to which we perpetually strive from that moment on. Once Upon a Dream deals precisely with that moment when in psychology of an individua „everything goes wrong“. Moment when „speculative, ideal I“ is starting to change under the pressure of social and cultural norms, conventions and expectations, as well as personal actions and decisions and image of Ideal I and fairytale morality, are starting to crumble. In the real world, the idea of fictional princesses (taken as a symbol of gentleness, innocence, beauty infallibility) is so fragile that it bursts like a soap bubble event at the first touch of reality and the crucial personal question arises: am I a hero or an antihero?
Author: Slavica Obradović
Curator: Teodora Jeremić
@ gallery Remont, Belgrade
March 2017