CHRISTIANA TSCHOEPE
// Christiana lives in Cologne, Germany, but often finds herself travelling on trains. She enjoys wandering the streets and trainstations – often self-absorbed in search of colourful movements. We present a selection from her series about a circus company that Christiana visits regularly, Cirque Bouffon.
Christiana´s photo platform #elsegruesst (literally “greetings from Else) is a creative picture journey through her everyday life – with a focus on people, especially women, in unstaged movement. She takes photos in subway stations, train stations, shopping streets, and escalators, but they are not “ordinary” street photography. They tell stories – of people rushing to work, rushing to catch the train, fleeing the rain or strolling towards an appointment – but through her own artistic lens. “I take photos according to my own rules – without looking at aperture, time, sharpness and pixels. The photos often demand a second look and sometimes irritate the expectations of the viewer: should this be deliberately the case?” she says.
Instead of a frozen movement, which can only be recognized from the context, Christiana uses motion blur to re-imagine scenes she encounters, bringing them to life with a new dimension.
“Even as a young woman, I very often took blurred photos – photos “that others would immediately delete”. Today I describe myself as an ambitious amateur photographer and as a photo artist of the photogenre ICM – intentional camera movement,” Christiana says.
“The goal of art is not to depict reality, but rather to create your own world”
Fernando Botero
What draws you to the arts?
When I experience art, I immerse myself in another world, I forget myself and expand my horizons – when I emerge from art, my reality is no longer what it was before – something always remains afterwards: a feeling, a colour, a new aspect or a new perspective. The way it is when I meet a new person and spend an interesting evening with them.
What do you like best about the project you submitted?
The photos are sensual, intense and poetic. The almost intimate atmosphere in the circus tent and the exhilarating music by Sergej Sweschinski always transport me into an astonished, dreamlike world – and make my pictures close and alive.
The Cirque Bouffon has inspired Christiana for many years with its agilely moving artists and the very special light in the tent. Instead of a frozen movement that can only be recognized from the context, by moving and shaking the camera, she creates photos that retain their own dynamic due to the motion blur – bringing them alive and thus reflecting exactly what we see, a performance in motion.
Click on the photos to see a larger image. Some images may be cropped for layout.
ALL PHOTOS © CHRISTIANA TSCHOEPE
To see more of her photography visit Christiana´s Instagram page and her Website.
SPECTACULUM MAGAZINE 
4 replies on “CIRQUE BOUFFON”
Wow, these are impressive pictures that really seem to „beam“ me into the special atmosphere of the Cirque Bouffon – through the eyes of a great artist.
Vielen Dank für dieses Kompliment 🙂 🙂
Was für eine beeindruckende und poetische Fotoserie. Ich freue mich schon auf deine nächste Ausstellung.
Vielen Dank liebe Barbara. Vom 7. bis 10. März kannst du meine Serie “Blurred Women” in der Stage Gallery in Bonn sehen.