{"id":66300,"date":"2018-06-12T19:13:40","date_gmt":"2018-06-12T17:13:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/?p=66300"},"modified":"2018-06-12T19:13:40","modified_gmt":"2018-06-12T17:13:40","slug":"sarah-bahbah","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/de\/article\/sarah-bahbah\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet the Empowering Artist Behind Those Dreamy Insta Film Stills"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"To her 559K Instagram followers, Sarah Bahbah needs no introduction; her dreamy cinematic stills, overlaid with pithy subtitles, have been peppering our feeds for as long as they\u2019ve existed. \u201cYou\u2019ve probably seen my art on someone else\u2019s account,\u201d reads her social media bio. But Bahbah is more than just a viral Instagram sensation \u2014 she\u2019s an artist \u2014 one who melds photography and prose to explore the intricacies of the millennial female psyche. <\/span><\/i><\/b> \nThough her photographs are often isolated, plucked out of context by Instagram algorithms that defy comprehension, Bahbah\u2019s images are sequential narratives that traverse the realities and fantasies of girl- and womanhood. From lighthearted lusting over chocolate and sex to tongue-in-cheek quips about fuckboys and feelings, Bahbah\u2019s film-still storylines encapsulate life\u2019s everyday moments, for better or worse. Many of them hint at the darker side of existence, with Bahbah drawing on her own personal struggles to speak about inadequacy, anxiety and loneliness. She\u2019s recently opened up to <\/span>Teen Vogue<\/span><\/i> about <\/span>surviving childhood abuse<\/span><\/a>, and she\u2019s been vocal about her battles with mental health in a bid to empower others and shed light on the darkness. It\u2019s what makes her work so irrevocably resonant \u2014 funny, sexy and sad in equal measure, Bahbah\u2019s wistful images combine the romance of foreign cinema with the tribulations of modern life to visceral effect. \u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/b> \nAmid a minor media storm surrounding Selena Gomez\u2019s alleged plagiarism of Bahbah\u2019s work in her latest music video \u2014 a topic Bahbah is reluctant to talk about \u2014 and the opening of her first UK solo show at London\u2019s Lawrence Alkin gallery, we catch up with the 26-year-old artist to talk about life, love and turning anguish into art.<\/span>
\n\"\"
\nTell me about the work in ‘Splash’<\/i><\/b> \nThe work focuses on my inner dialogue and what it means to be transparent within myself and my emotions. When you look at themes of the work you notice an inconsistency between wanting to be loved and fearing being loved, I do play a lot with the ambivalence of that. I also focus on heartbreak, love, pain and suffering and coming of age so all these you see across the work.<\/span>
\nWhere did the aesthetic come from \u2014 were you a Tumblr girl back in the day?<\/i><\/b> \nI\u2019d say it was a combination of the things that were catching my attention on Instagram. A lot of that was the screenshots that were coming from film, foreign film especially. That\u2019s also where the subtitles come from on Tumblr too. I was like \u2018how can I challenge Instagram, how can I utilise the Instagram platform to curate a story that isn\u2019t motion?\u2019 and so I created a body of cinematic stills that appeared as though they came from film but weren\u2019t, they were purely photographs. I wanted to be able to have one stand-alone piece that if people viewed it they would be able to associate it with their own experiences but then when you bring the body of work together, there\u2019s a bigger story to tell. In motion we rely on watching the movement in order to tell the story but it\u2019s the gap between each photo which allows the viewer to create their own ideas about what the work was about, and that was my signature. I am glad that I got to establish a style in that way.<\/span>
\nSo the fact that they\u2019re often taken out of context \u2014 even just through Instagram\u2019s algorithm \u2014 doesn\u2019t bother you? <\/i><\/b> \nNo, absolutely not. My intent is just to express, and if I am expressing myself and others are reading it and it is helping them express themselves then like all of this is good.<\/span>
\nI think that\u2019s why they\u2019re so interesting and resonant, because they take on a new meaning within the context of the viewer\u2019s own personal narrative. \u00a0<\/i><\/b>\u00a0<\/span>
\nRight.<\/span>
\n\"\"
\nThe women in your images are beautiful and often vulnerable, but ultimately strong. How do you achieve this mood on set?<\/i><\/b> \nEverything is focussed on the energy of the shot, so the most important thing to me is that the woman profiled is feeling liberated and safe.\u00a0<\/span>
\nYour photography is obviously cinematic in essence or evocation, are you inspired by cinema directly?<\/i><\/b> \nI\u2019m not so much a cinema person, actually, but I do appreciate and adore the works of the Cohen brothers. I\u2019ve said this multiple times but <\/span>The Big Lebowski <\/span><\/i>und <\/span>No Country for Old Men<\/span><\/i> are visually so important for me \u2014 they\u2019re so good.<\/span>
\nYour work is often described as being brave \u2014 the themes of love and heartbreak to anxiety and mental health are all really brave things to talk about.\u00a0Why has this been so central to your practice?<\/i><\/b> \nFor so long I didn’t realise the power of vocalising your emotions. Growing up I was constantly dismissed for having any sense of emotion, whether it was positive or negative, and when I was experiencing my traumas I wasn\u2019t necessarily heard. There was a lot of disassociation. By the time I reached adulthood, I had learned to be quite apathetic. And the thing with apathy is not that you don’t have emotions\u2026<\/span>
\nYou\u2019re not in touch with them\u2026<\/i><\/b> \nExactly, and you\u2019re constantly dismissing them. Eventually it gets too much and you feel everything at once. It\u2019s that feeling that\u2019s inspired a lot of my work \u2014 when I was overwhelmed I started writing and then by writing I was creating and then by creating I was healing. By expressing myself through art I was giving myself a voice, and I think it\u2019s important to do that because hopefully it empowers others to do the same.<\/span>
\n\"\"
\nWas it difficult for you to do that initially? <\/i><\/b> \nI think it came over time. If you look at my first series, which I started in 2015, you\u2019ll notice that the works are a lot more innocent, and the themes are a lot more youthful and young essentially, and then as you move through the series through the years, the themes become a lot more intense and the emotions being expressed are a lot more serious.<\/span>
\nDo you think that\u2019s come with your own healing?<\/i><\/b> \nYeah, definitely. I\u2019ve spent the past two years trying to rewire the way my brain works, the way I eat and breathe. It\u2019s been a long journey to healing, but also it\u2019s been a wonderful one, and one that I\u2019ve truly embraced. I do feel like I have come over a lot and I\u2019m quite grateful for it.<\/span>
\nWhat made you want to do the Teen Vogue article?<\/i><\/b> \nStaying silent about child sexual abuse is not doing society any favours. It\u2019s a conversation that needs to be addressed more often \u2014 there are so many taboos around it and people are so uncomfortable talking about it. We’re all talking about\u00a0 the #MeToo movement, about adults and teenagers, but what about the kids? What about the kids who do not have a voice and do not know that they can talk about these things? I think it\u2019s really important that these conversations are had, more than ever, and there are a lot of children that can be saved through that.<\/span>
\nYeah, definitely. Teen Vogue is moving in a great direction I just have to say.<\/i><\/b> \nIncredible, I\u2019m so happy I got to do the feature, I couldn\u2019t think of a better platform.<\/span>
\n\"\"
\nYou said in the article that you schedule time to put your phone on airplane mode and be offline which is interesting since a big part of your practice exists online. Why has that been important to you? Do you think that Instagram and social media is breeding a generation of people which is more anxious or less attentive?<\/i><\/b> \nI think social media is essentially another way of us distracting ourselves from reality, so when I put my phone on airplane mode it\u2019s so I can check in with myself and bring myself back to my surroundings. Because people are constantly using their phones as a mode of escape and not actually being with themselves and they\u2019re not giving themselves time to feel what they\u2019re feeling. It\u2019s essentially disassociating in the same way we binge-watch television shows, or drink alcohol or do drugs. I think our phones are no different from that \u2014 it\u2019s just another way to disassociate from reality. My intent behind airplane mode is to sleep peacefully and not have distractions when I wake up.<\/span>
\nOther than ‘Splash’, what projects have you been working on?<\/i><\/b> \nWell, I\u2019m currently writing a TV show. I\u2019ve been working on it for a year now \u2014 I can\u2019t really talk about the details too much. I don\u2019t just do photography, I create in general, I see myself as a creative, so I think this TV show is just another layer of expressing myself. And, though for now we\u2019re just focussing on Splash<\/em> in London, we may potentially bring it to Milan, Berlin and Amsterdam but that\u2019s yet to be decided.<\/span>
\nBring it to Berlin, that\u2019s where we\u2019re based.<\/i><\/b> \nOkay, I will work on that, I love Berlin so much.<\/span>
\n\"\"
\n\"\" \"\" \"\" \"\" \"\"
\nSarah Bahbah’s ‘Splash’ is on display at Lawrence Alkin\u00a0Gallery<\/a>, Mayfair until 22nd June.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sofia Coppola meets French New Wave in Sarah Bahbah’s wistful exploration of millennial femininity.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":66346,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11856,139],"tags":[10722,3068,10723,10724],"class_list":["post-66300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sleek-art","category-art","tag-film-stills","tag-instagram","tag-sarah-bahbah","tag-sofia-coppola"],"acf":{"main_category":null,"legacy":"1","exclude_from_ads":null,"hero_title":null,"subtitle":null,"hero":null,"teasers":null,"facebook_image":null,"related_articles":null,"next_article":null,"sleek_card_focus":null,"content":null},"yoast_head":"\nMeet the Empowering Artist Behind Those Dreamy Insta Film Stills<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Sofia Coppola meets French New Wave in Sarah Bahbah's wistful exploration of millennial femininity.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/de\/article\/sarah-bahbah\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"de_DE\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Meet the Empowering Artist Behind Those Dreamy Insta Film Stills\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Sofia Coppola meets French New Wave in Sarah Bahbah's wistful exploration of millennial femininity.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/de\/article\/sarah-bahbah\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Sleek Magazine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sleekmag\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-06-12T17:13:40+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@sleekmag\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@sleekmag\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Verfasst von\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"sleek\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Gesch\u00e4tzte Lesezeit\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"8\u00a0Minuten\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/\",\"name\":\"Sleek Magazine\",\"description\":\"Sleek is Germany\u2019s leading independent media house\/brand for creativity and innovation located in Berlin the creative capital of the world. 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