Return on Invest: Sarah Carlier

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As a photographer Sarah Carlier (1981) seeks out the interaction or maybe even the tension between reality and her interpretation thereof. 'Characterising my work is the symbiosis between reality and fantasy. Ordinary meetings and conversations with people, the things that occur in my street, or radical events are the sources of inspiration for my work. In my head I knead them into images, stories and mise-en-scènes that entail a personal, poetic, serious or ironic note. The final work can be a portrait, a landscape or still life; a separate image, a series or a video; pressed, printed, or presented on a screen - but always with a clear focus on the subject.'

Her work is not about the big societal themes, rather the emphasis is on the local, everyday life. Carlier's research is aimed at people and their quest for happiness, certainty, support, and the dealing with time and space in a society that undergoes constant change.

Return on Invest shows an installation, Fisherman's blue(s), about fishery, a subjest Carlier has worked with before. We are shown a shaky video of the sea, made by a fisherman and on a smaller monitor a video of a singing fisherman's wife. She is singing a traditional song but forgets the lyrics halfway through and then starts to hum. Her lack of words does not interfere with her story, the confidence with which she sings a fisherman's tale.

www.sarahcarlier.nl

Sarah Carlier, Fisherman's blue(s), 2012
photo: © Rob Kollaard, courtesy Stroom Den Haag

Sarah Carlier, Fisherman's blue(s), 2012
photo: courtesy the artist

Invite (design Thonik, Amsterdam)