The seeds were planted during a visit to Zagreb and a subsequent encounter with a brass band festival in rural Serbia, both of which piqued the US-based photographer\u2019s curiosity. She has returned to the Balkan region on and off for more than ten years, from northernmost Croatia to southern Greece. A stack of signposts photographed from behind, pointing exactly nowhere, allude to the unknown. \u201cThe blurring for me is really important,\u201d she says of her choice not to distinguish each geographic location. It\u2019s not an insignificant decision given the many tensions over borders and national identities in the region, but this was personal preference, too. \u201cIt was very loose. I wanted to cast a wide net over the region \u2013 I wasn\u2019t checking any boxes,\u201d she says.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She was guided by a \u201cstray dog feeling\u201d, echoing Daid\u014d Moriyama\u2019s famous self-characterisation as a roving photographer on the fringes, which is perhaps why she was inclined to photograph \u201clonely people and creatures\u201d. Much of the work was shot in isolated settings \u2013 misty villages, rugged roadsides, vast, mountain-edged lakes \u2013 untethered from the rush and conformity of urban life. \u201cI\u2019m always drawn to outside the city,\u201d she says. She went in search of landscapes that had \u201cthis DNA or a human history that\u2019s part of it. Like a landscape could have a feeling itself; it could experience a feeling of what the past might be or what the current moment is.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Yet Mountain Black Heart is not a book of landscapes. The people she encountered over ten years and thousands of miles are the lifeblood of the project. Many of the people appear statuesque: the monumental figure of a burly woodcutter thrusting an axe in the air; a woman wrapped in a blanket, leaving only her head and neck visible like a noble bust; a child poised in absolute stillness as snakes coil around him resembles a sculpture of a mythic deity. This effect is as much about texture as it is about composition. Skin often takes on a porcelain quality, seeming solid yet smooth to the touch. Though she hadn\u2019t set out to create portraits in this way, she recognises in them something \u201csedentary\u201d, as though \u201crooted to the ground\u201d, she says. \u201cI hadn\u2019t thought about this, but it\u2019s stoic \u2026 It\u2019s a sign of permanence or strength.\u201d<\/p>\n
This stasis is confronted by many moments of disorientation within the images. Bodies are flung upside down or suspended mid-air; awkward perspectives of spaces leave viewers on uncertain ground. That distortion also appears in the artefacts, lens burn, double exposure and other photographic and processing glitches left intact. Sometimes Rozovsky\u2019s palette warps into searing whites and unnatural blues, rusts and violets, the lighting aggressive in front of her close-range flash. \u201cI have a book I made in Cuba that came out a few years before this \u2013 I think it\u2019s this particular [Fuji medium-format] camera that I\u2019m really drawn to \u2013 and I dipped into that mode again here, where there\u2019s flash and the image can have more of a cruelty to it. It\u2019s less romantic,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n These features are also a byproduct of her after-dark tendencies. \u201cI didn\u2019t keep regular hours, and the nighttime, I mean, it\u2019s silly, but it\u2019s so rich. It\u2019s so mysterious, and nobody sees you,\u201d she says. \u201cIn my mind, darkness really relates to violence and doubt and fear. But also it has these moments of beauty that saturate it or overpower the fear.\u201d<\/p>\n Those references, \u201cto violence and doubt and fear\u201d, speak to the project\u2019s undertow of conflict. It began several years into the Syrian Civil War, driving a refugee crisis that flowed through the Balkan region on a path heading west; Rozovsky visited refugee camps during her visits. It also gestures at the recent history of devastation within the region itself. \u201cIn Sarajevo you see a lot of bullet holes, and there were genocides and massacres everywhere you go,\u201d she says. \u201cBut the last thing I want to do is show a bullet hole because it points to things we already know \u2026 It\u2019s like Eggleston said: I\u2019m at war with the obvious.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/a>
![\"Mountain](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/476743.jpg\")
Irina Rozovsky, from Mountain Black Heart (MACK, 2026)Courtesy of the artist and MACK<\/p>\n
![\"Mountain](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/476744.jpg\")
Irina Rozovsky, from Mountain Black Heart (MACK, 2026)Courtesy of the artist and MACK<\/p>\n