Memories on Film - Lola Rossi

Lola Rossi

“This mask everyone puts on takes even more space on social media, but we also can't escape it. It is like a drug making us fall in a kind of lucidity and emptiness at the same time.”

Memories on Film

is a French, Berlin-based photographer, digital artist, filmmaker, and self-professed tech nerd. Using contrasting bold colours and lines with soft details, she aims to portray her profoundly personal message in a world overwhelmed by images. Rossi began her career as a VFX artist working for big names in the cinema industry, but decided to leave the technical and predictable work in favour of a freelance lifestyle that nurtured her creative inspiration. Rossi draws her inspiration from a variety of sources, but she is moved prominently by the culture of the 1980’s, femme fatale, and retrofuturism. There are distinctly feminist motivations in Rossi’s work; however, Rossi’s focus is not on the strength of these female subjects in the traditional sense. Instead, she chooses to emphasize the fragility and loneliness of her models. For Rossi, this disenchantment originates from the masks she feels society imposes on people, especially women. She views her artistic process as removing the layers of an outer shell from her subjects. “We are part of an exceptional generation who knew the world without Internet but grew up with it. This mask everyone puts on takes even more space on social media, but we also can't escape it. It is like a drug making us fall in a kind of lucidity and emptiness at the same time,” Rossi says.

“Film is a complete way of creating a universe because you can make the viewer evolve between different locations that are related, and explore both the microcosm and the macrocosm of the universe you are creating.”

In her work and philosophy, Rossi acknowledges that she is living in a generation that knows what it’s like to live both with and without widespread social media. Because of this, she believes she is better able to perceive what is wrong with today’s online culture. Upon reflection, she is now able to realize that she spent part of her artistic life embedded in, and catering to, what many are calling a ‘toxic culture’: “I spent a lot of time making the mistake of adapting my work to social media and reading too much feedback on my work on Instagram or Facebook. I almost lost myself and the essence of my work in it,” Rossi recalls, “Now I am trying to take the biggest step back that I can from these social media.” As someone who has experimented with various multimedia and has worked in several industries, Rossi derives much of

her inspiration from her favourite filmmakers such as David Lynch, David Fincher and Jim Jarmusch. Rossi even prefers film in some ways: “Film is a complete way of creating a universe because you can make the viewer evolve between different locations that are related, and explore both the microcosm and the macrocosm of the universe you are creating. But it is, of course, less instant and a longer process than photography.” It is essential for Rossi to understand her films’ universe inside and out. Part of her process is creating mood boards and collecting books, illustrations, films and even furniture as references. By engrossing herself in the fantasy, she is able to become a part of it, and it becomes a part of her. Once the absorption of herself and her work achieve equal measure, the process

is complete and the creative symbiosis offers palpable results for the viewer. Of course, photography serves as a different, but equally important creative outlet for Rossi: “Photography is a way for me to store memories on film. I like to embellish or destroy these images in post-production as we are doing it with our minds when memorizing and fantasizing about something.” Rossi escaped the need to fit certain trends, in favour of more emotive and personal art. As part and parcel of this realization, Rossi is not actively involved in photography culture due to the sheer volume of work produced and displayed. She treats her medium as a religious process, “For a photographer, clicking the button should not be an automatism, you need to give a part of yourself to the images.”

“Photography is a way for me to store memories on film. I like to embellish or destroy these images in post-production as we are doing it with our minds when memorizing and fantasizing about something.”