He is so obsessed with me

Romantic love is the big obsession of our time. It is now building a new norm for women, who were just recently freed from the obligations of marriage and the patriarchal order and who today have perhaps more freedom than ever. But seeking for romantic love can become a trap, a painful loop of waiting.

I have photographed my everyday life as a single woman since 2011. I have dealt with the difficulties in finding a partner in my work He is so obsessed with me. I was 36 when I started and I am 44 now. In my images I reflect my feelings and experiences. I show the pleasure and the pain, the lightness and the weight – and how close they can be one another.

The title He is so obsessed with me refers to a relationship that doesn’t exist. The title character, the He, is imaginary. He represents the look of someone else, through whose eyes the main character is viewed – or photographed. The He is a mixture of my gaze and a fictive gaze.

I’m attracted to snapshot photography and amateur aesthetics. The imperfection and immediacy of them, the illusion of authenticity. My approach to photography is expressive and experimental. I see photos as material I can do anything with. I use an old digital pocket camera and rebuilt the images with digital tools.

I take photographs because they have a certain connection to reality. But I like to play with that connection, shake it and disturb it. I work very intuitively and in a rough way. I follow my inner impulses in order to reach something invisible and unconscious, something that I can not find by planning and with reason.

I'm interested in the subjectivity and unreliability of seeing, experiencing and narrating, how the mind effects on what we see, how we see and how we interpret what we see.

I work with mass of images and text, building sequences and narratives. I mix different kinds of images, because I want that the level of the so called photographic reality varies in the narrative.

He is so obsessed with me is about my obsession. But it is not only mine, it can be found at almost every corner of the world.

He is so obsessed with me is an ongoing project. It has two parts to it so far: a photobook (2013) and an online story (2017). The third part is in progress.

The submitted images are from the online work He is so obsessed with me. It has over 3000 images and text. It can be viewed at www.heissoobsessedwithme.com.

© Marja Saleva - Image from the He is so obsessed with me photography project
i

From the project He is so obsessed with me (Online story), 2017. Single images don't have titles. The size and technique will be determined individually for each exhibition.

© Marja Saleva - Image from the He is so obsessed with me photography project
i

From the project He is so obsessed with me (Online story), 2017. Single images don't have titles. The size and technique will be determined individually for each exhibition.

© Marja Saleva - Image from the He is so obsessed with me photography project
i

From the project He is so obsessed with me (Online story), 2017. Single images don't have titles. The size and technique will be determined individually for each exhibition.

© Marja Saleva - Image from the He is so obsessed with me photography project
i

From the project He is so obsessed with me (Online story), 2017. Single images don't have titles. The size and technique will be determined individually for each exhibition.

© Marja Saleva - Image from the He is so obsessed with me photography project
i

From the project He is so obsessed with me (Online story), 2017. Single images don't have titles. The size and technique will be determined individually for each exhibition.

© Marja Saleva - Image from the He is so obsessed with me photography project
i

From the project He is so obsessed with me (Online story), 2017. Single images don't have titles. The size and technique will be determined individually for each exhibition.

© Marja Saleva - Image from the He is so obsessed with me photography project
i

From the project He is so obsessed with me (Online story), 2017. Single images don't have titles. The size and technique will be determined individually for each exhibition.

© Marja Saleva - Image from the He is so obsessed with me photography project
i

From the project He is so obsessed with me (Online story), 2017. Single images don't have titles. The size and technique will be determined individually for each exhibition.

© Marja Saleva - Image from the He is so obsessed with me photography project
i

From the project He is so obsessed with me (Online story), 2017. Single images don't have titles. The size and technique will be determined individually for each exhibition.

© Marja Saleva - Image from the He is so obsessed with me photography project
i

From the project He is so obsessed with me (Online story), 2017. Single images don't have titles. The size and technique will be determined individually for each exhibition.

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