On Homesickness And The Sea: In Conversation With Katarina Juricic

After graduating from the Royal Academy of Art in the Netherlands, the emerging photographer flew back to her home country of Croatia for a summer residency on the island of Brač. There she explored the personal concept of ‘home’, and “Staring at the sea is the purest form of meditation. The sea is just magical” felt the strongest impact of the sea on her creative endeavors. “As time is passing by, it’s unlikely that The Netherlands will ever feel like a real home to me”, Juričić’ tells IGNANT. “Fortunately, summer is long enough to go back to the island of Brač, to remind myself of what being home feels like”. The photo series ‘Home Seack’ is informed by her stay on this island, and comprises still life images of swimming paraphernalia, and staged compositions of found objects. “It started as a very intuitive and spontaneous act”, Juričić explains of the process. “I see it as a visual diary, a portrait of my time there and the procedure of developing a relationship with the environment”.

The title of the series is a play on the phrase ‘home sick’, combined with the word ‘sea’. The photographer explains that this literary choice was made out of a yearning for familiarity. “There is this feeling I have every time I arrive on Brač… I feel relieved. With the series I’m evoking this same feeling again. “The feeling we have for the place we consider as home is quite significant”But, being far away from the island turns relief into homesickness, which in my case becomes homeseackness”. The impact of the sea changed her perception: “Staring at the sea is the purest form of meditation. The sea is just magical, and its magic is contagious”. To Juričić, home is not just a tangible space to live in, but a solid memory that is individual and incomparable. “The feeling we have for the place we consider as home is quite significant—peaceful would be the best word to describe it”.