Valida Baba (Azerbaijan)

T - a- c- t- u-s

[ from Latin the sense of touch ]

Camera : YASHICA 635, 120mm

Film: Kodak 120 Professional Portra Color Film (ISO 160)

There are times when I am encountering something aesthetically beautiful that I feel a need of tactile sensation to understand it more deeply. I believe if we can look at everything through “art’s eye” then everything requires and offers a form of communication. For us to enter that realm we need our different senses. Some deep connections are built through touch. Sometimes we are touched by words, music, poetry or pieces of art; they enter deep into our souls and reside there: Sometimes we are touched by others’ presence, or when we touch and are touched physically. These are moments in which we are using our senses to understand.

In these series, I wanted to touch trees, to get an understanding of who/what they are deep down and build a form of communication. I have spent some time sitting and listening to them. I could feel the different changes that different trees' presence were offering to me. If you sit next to or hug them you have a different experience than just looking at them, but if you touch them long enough you receive different signals, and your body understands it. You build some form of arch that communicates, and brings a healing effect to one’s body. Henceforth, in these photographs, I am inviting others to look at trees closely and build their own arch.

Another self sets us on a journey

Keeping people away becomes healing

May days do not come so easily,

To arrive one needs to keep going.