The Signs Of Life: Photo Project By Daniel Zakharov

“It all began with two porcelain parakeets on the windowsill of the house next door. Every time I passed by I would look at them. Just couldn’t help gazing. I got even more intrigued when I noticed that there were days when the parakeets would be looking out of the window, and there were days when they’d be facing the room. What makes these two so special for their owner, thought I, they must mean a lot to her, otherwise why would she display them in her window for everyone to see? Who lives in that room, what story could she tell? I couldn’t figure out what the birds were trying to tell me, my imagination was drawing its own pictures, but one thing was clear to me: the birds belonged to an old lady. The game with the unknown thrilled me.

Since then every time I was out on the street I would look up and notice more and more windows with budgies in them. In fact, budgies seemed to be a most popular theme of window decorations. Pretty soon I noticed other recurring patterns – skeletons, dogs, comic book characters, and human figures. I began classifying them. These “signs of life” provided very personal information about other people’s lives and the worlds unknown to me. And still, the most important part of those lives remained hidden. Today, when our lives are formed by social networks and you can learn anything you want to know about any one by a mere movement of your finger, I welcome mystery as something wonderful. To be free from virtual world, from the stream of information and knowledge, to be able to concentrate only on your perception of the reality around you, your own thoughts and fantasies…” – Daniel Zakharov.