The project Pogledi / The Looks started in 2001 for the art event Passaggi. It was set in the old town of Martina Franca in Southern Italy . Puglia in the vicinity of Bari , the big harbour city, was in that time facing itself with great amounts of illegal immigrants, mostly from Albania and Africa . The 'strangers' were/are seen as a threat to the local communities. The fear lead to mistrusting of foreigners and closing into circles of local communities.

Project:

We took pictures of our friends (as well as the both of us) in Ljubljana and set the posters of their eyes with basic information (name, sex, age, profession) on the walls of the old town. These were considered as 'strangers'. On the spot, we took polaroid pictures of local people and made pairs by our choice. While working on the streets, the two of us were already known to the people of the neighbourhood, so we took our polaroid pictures, too, and stuck them by our eyes photos.

What happened was that the people whose' eyes seemed so threatening, became less strangers and more similar to the locals... they got personalities, being in pairs with the locals. We were surprised by the reactions of the locals, it seemed that the project worked. We decided to make it a travelling project in progress.

In September 2005 we revived the project and started the journey. In autumn we have set the project in French town Cahors, in May we are going to explore Poland terrain. The same project is now questioning the situation after May 1st 2004 (East countries joining the EU). What are the feelings on both sides? A kind of an uncomfortableness can be detected between the 'old' EU countries. 'Who are these strangers?' is probably often asked.

So, the old EU citizens are afraid of the new EU citizens to overflow their countries, at this moment we are all afraid of any 'suspicious' Arab-like persons with rucksacks etc. But on the other hand we still appreciate personal contacts, no matter of nationalities.