Aleksei Kazantsev​

Relaxing Chamber is a continuously developing series of photographs that
revolves around one common theme: the idea of consciousness in humans and animals.

The images are motifs of human faces and animal forms, often not immediately recognisable.

There are claws and tentacles, thrusting out, stiffened, at rest. And there are people, surrounded by a black void, some seemingly asleep, some in an ecstatic trance, others in contemplation.

The project circles around the human psyche and concerns the archetypal symbolism of animals in collective unconscious memory, altered states of consciousness in trance and hypnosis, and related phenomena such as feelings of euphoria, isolation and dissociation in everyday life.

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‘Relaxing Chamber’ (entomological term) is a container which has a very high humidity.

When insects are dead long before pinning, rigor mortis develops, often resulting in body distortion.

In such cases, a “relaxing chamber” is used to make them flexible.

Aleksei Kazantsev (Slutsk, Belarus, 1975) is a visual artist working in the medium of photography. Lives and works in Antwerp, Belgium. He studied photography at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp. His work intuitively and narratively stems from the visual heritage of archetypal images, as well as our collective unconscious memory, symbolism, hypnotic states, trance, liminal states of mind. The artist looks for a twist in reality. Using altered perspectives and distorted vision, he moves you to feel disorientation and to recognize the uncanny.
Exhibited in various galleries across Europe: Belgium (Pulsar, LWM18, National 55, Archiraar Gallery, Liège Photobook Festival, L’image sans nom, PAK-Gistel, Psychiatric Center Sint-Amandus); UK (pic.london festival, The Minories Galleries); Poland (Arsenal Gallery, Fundacia Villa Sokrates, Gray Mandorla Studio).

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http://www.akapic.com/