Published on: June 29, 2008

I met Aleksandra Stratimirović in a nice cosy little place in Stockholm. It was spring in a town where they worship it perhaps the most in the whole world. And it was in Södermalm (the southern part of Stockholm), where you would go to enjoy it. And most likely it would be a place exactly like the one where it turned out that she forgot that we were supposed to have an interview. Well, in the end it was more of a relaxed talk than an official interview anyway.

There is a certain peace and out-of-this-world aura about Aleksandra. She speaks carefully and maybe even reluctantly about her work – as if she doesn’t really want to talk about it or that there are no appropriate words for what she wants to convey. But she definitely makes you listen.

Perhaps the best portrait of Aleksandra would actually be her own – a self-portrait that is called Sunny Day and is currently on display in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Translucent and very still. Something that stands out from, what is according to a japanese writer Murakami called – a giant anthill of capitalist society.

The above photographs are by Bojan Brecelj

Aleksandra was born in Belgrade where she attended the University of Fine Arts and Crafts. In 1998 and later on she attended various courses in the University of Fine Arts and Design in Stockholm, Sweden among them Lighting Design and Daylight and Architecture course. She currently lives and works in Stockholm as an independent artists working on different kinds of projects with exhibitions and awards ranging all across Europe. Among other things she is also an active participant of Lighting Detectives community, which is a group of Lighting Designers, that organises various lighting events around the world aimed at improving the quality and awareness of importance of light in urban space.

You were born in Belgrade and lived there for a long time –is there a difference between the night-time environment of Stockholm and Belgrade?
Belgrade is so much stronger. They use light everywhere and large amounts of it too. Regarding this we could also use a very popular saying in Serbia: the more the better.

Is observing these differences also the idea of Lighting Detectives?
Once per year Lighting Designers that are members of Lighting Detectives, meet and go to tests, try-outs and analyses at a location they choose.

And these events happen mostly outdoors – in urban space?
Yes. When The Detectives were founded, each member was supposed to analyse her or his own town. Now, it has more than thousand members, so this idea changed a bit.

What is the result of these analyses or events that are organized by Lighting Detectives?
It depends what was the purpose or the meaning of the event in the first place – it could be to show certain characteristics of an environment that is beeing analysed. It could be a workshop and to do something very quickly – it’s quite open actually. Every town or every initiative Lighting Detectives undertake is different. The only thing that is common between all of these initiatives is that all of the members of Lighting Detectives inform eachother of their activities and plans.

James Turrel once said that with his installations he is trying to create something like “pure light”. Is there anything that would join or connect Your work like the above statement connects Turrel’s?
Light is always part of my work – a very important part. But there is always some other material that I like to use together with light. A material that binds light and shadow, a material that conveys the main motive or the main beauty of light. Which one I use depends of course on the environment or space that I work in. It depends what that space wants to have.

What kind of projects are you involved with now?
Currently I am working on an interior installation in a courthouse here in Stockholm. It is a very interesting space - no daylight or very little amount of it. The installation consists of quite a large number of light points on the wall, distributed in a pattern that resembles a night view of a town from an airplane for example. These light points flicker – but very slowly. It is like the movements and changes in a nocturnal urbanscape –on a largescale it moves very slowly. And these light points change in groups – at a certain point a group of light points on one side is stronger but this stronger light slowly moves to the other side. The slow rhytm of change is very important. Because the user of the space shouldn’t and actually doesn’t really notice that there was a change, but on the subconscious level he/she does realise that something is different. This pace of movements and dynamics is very important.

How did you find out about the most appropriate speed of movements as actually a non-user of the space.
I had many meetings with the client where I learned about who is using the space, how fast do they pass through the space and so on. It was also very important to consider the people that work here – that they are not bored by the installation, but at the same time to be pleasant for those that come here for the occasions that are usually not so very pleasant for them, since it is a courthouse.

One can notice that your installations are very much like paintings or installations that are meant to be observed. They are a bit different from the “ambiental” installations, where the visitor actually enters “inside” the world they create. What’s your opinion on that?
I think it depends very much on the space where this installation will be. If it is a public building, it is not appropriate to create something like a “dark room” in it for example (smiles). But still, I think that it is possible to create something very attractive that enables someone, maybe not everyone, to spend some time in that feeling or mood. Even with two-dimensional installations that are sometimes the most you can get in many spaces it is still possible to create a window to a world, that exists beside the one that we live our daily lives in.

Thank you.

Interview conducted by Mitja Prelovšek, MALD