A Husband in Paris (2007) is a playful comment on the idea of marrying abroad for papers, due to political isolation in economically underdeveloped countries. This was a starting point in this work, which, during the course of its progress, acquired a number of other meanings.

The scenario is the following: the photographer took up the role of a young woman from Eastern Europe in the search of a husband in Paris, the Western 'city of love'. Walking across various city districts, she approached candidates asking them whether they would be willing to 'marry her' and what it would look like. After a short introductory 'sniffing', they would agree to pose together with her for a snapshot, playing the role of potential marriage couples.

The aesthetic complexity of the images surpasses the strictly political aspects and stretches to the romantic relationships between the possible marriage partners. The photo series stands at the intersection of private and global social issues, while the hilarious approach reduces a certain uneasiness and explicitness of the initial idea. Eventually, the whole project is turned into a light and spontaneous game of revealing the latent possibilities in human relationships interwoven with cultural differences.

Clearly the photographer is director, actor and provocateur. Even while casting herself in the role of a woman in need , she is 'controlling'  the men who accept her proposition to pose with her in each photograph. Perhaps they are bemused, bewitched, hopeful – or merely happy to pause in their own ordinary day to surrender to a spontaneous crazy flight of fantasy. But she has cast her spell , and the results (these photographs) are brilliant.

Jim Casper, editor-in-chief of LensCulture

Our bride seems to feel realistically comfortable, hopeful even, about every one of her crazily selected grooms. The husbands, for their part, appear happily resigned to their gorgeous Fate – and also, quietly protective of her, each in his own private way. The observer, meanwhile, is almost touched by the gaiety with which she has confided the future of her marriages to the validating camera. 

Of course, the complicities are still in their springtime infancy. However, a faintly pervasive air of gentle lassitude suggests (among other possibilities?) that summer may already have arrived...

Jonathan Boulting, poet