Taking Space

The femme form, as presented in Kristina Shakht’s Taking Space, is both a collaborative agent and motif of impermanence. In a series of images capturing moments of emptiness in nature and in contained water, a visualisation of personal, political, and mythical vacuity shared through a striking portrayal by model and longtime collaborator Daphne Laan. The softly-hued, dreamlike images espouse a themeatic subtlety that serves well in more direct reviews of Shakht’s masterful ability to transport. However, through an additional layer of Slavic folk subtextuality, she presents a deeply personal commentary on what it means to exist in a state of liminality, whether imposed or self-embraced. Her deeply intimate experiences with revoked access to her homeland add depth to her concerted mission to present femme existence in ways that challenge collective understandings of the physical and liberation.