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3/8
During Carnevale parades in 14th century Italy, participants would throw coins or eggs filled with perfume into the crowd.
1/8
Merriam-Webster defines
confetti as: small bits or streamers of brightly colored paper made
for throwing (as at weddings)
and pinpoints its first known
use in 1815.
3/8
During Carnevale parades in 14th century Italy, participants would throw coins or eggs filled with perfume into the crowd. Soon the crowd started throwing things back (mostly mud balls and rotten eggs, which were eventually banned)
1/8
Merriam-Webster defines
confetti as: small bits or streamers of brightly colored paper made
for throwing (as at weddings)
and pinpoints its first known
use in 1815.
1/8
There are 3000 pounds of confetti used during for NYE 2018, which is around 30,000 pieces of paper.
In comparison, the Confetti Project usually uses between two and five pounds of confetti per session.
confetti facts TK
Click on photo to view more
“Something that really guides me, and really reminds me of why I’m doing this, is the one person I worked with who passed away due to cancer. I was able to get to know her before she was diagnosed, and show her the photos afterwards and see her strength and her celebration of that strength. After she passed away, I was able to show those pictures to her family and friends.” She’s quiet for a moment, perhaps thinking of her own personal experience with cancer, and hikes up her jeans, which we find out after were her late father’s. “We’re all gonna die at whatever point,” she says flatly. "I think the project shows you what it feels like to be alive, and to have gratitude for that.”
The awkward couple was just one of eight diverse open studio sessions throughout that chilly February day—including a lady duo that drove up four hours from D.C., a mother and her toddler, and two sisters who were over a decade apart in age. They all had different answers for Aleksich's question, "What do you celebrate?"
When asked about the answers that really resonated with her, she hesitates to pick one, or even take full credit for the results of her work. “This project is very reciprocal. Everything you see in my work is because of what people bring to the space. I just help facilitate it.” She pauses, then offers up one story that she considers the essence of the project.
After this revelation, Aleksich found herself at a crossroads in both her life and her art. She had just left her job and moved to Brooklyn. Emboldened by the artistic environment around her, she started asking people what they celebrated in the face of uncertainty and doubt. She’d then invite them to her studio to be throw around confetti. “The plan was to do a three-month photography challenge. Shoot 50 people. Make a coffee table book that would be a bestseller. That was the more entrepreneurial approach to the project,” she tells us. The results were a little different. While working on the three month project, Aleksich's father was diagnosed with cancer, and the process took on a new meeting. She watched people go through a kind of catharsis in front of her lens. Each time a person came to her studio, it was like a therapy session masquerading as a photo shoot... for all parties involved.
What started as a plan for a coffee table book exploded into a desire to start a visual celebration movement. Aleksich has set up installations at Artists & Fleas (a flea market in Williamsburg, Brooklyn), a brand relaunch party in SoHo for BLISS, Popsugar’s corporate HQ on International Women’s Day, and in Dubai for the launch of fashion retailer Sauce’s loyalty program. She’s working on a large-scale, commercial pop-up that will offer attendees full immersion into the colorful, emotional release of The Confetti Project. And her open studios are a new branch of her growing, glittery empire, one that makes the project accessible to a wider variety of people. “It’s thrilling, I don’t know who is going to come and when,” Aleksich admits, “Although… a lot of people come early, like before we’re open. It’s New York. Come late.”
“Here” is one of the open studio events held by The Confetti Project, an art movement that involves tumbling confetti and emotional catharsis. “The idea for it started with me getting glitter bombed at a party,” Aleksich tells us. “Then I went to see OK Go at the Bowery, and the entire floor around me was covered in confetti and I was like ‘Hmm, this is a beautiful mess.’ So I started picking pieces up and hoarding it in the pockets of my leather jacket.” A few days later, on a particularly tough day, she put her hands in her pockets and confetti spilled out. “I was so pleasantly surprised, I found myself smiling,” she says. She also found herself wondering about the power of confetti, how it’s been used in the past, and what the hell it even was. “I looked up the definition. It was literally ‘little pieces of paper thrown during a time of celebration.'" So she came to a conclusion: "Confetti equals celebration."
A conservative young couple stands against a powder-pink paper backdrop, their practical shoes obscured by an accumulation of gold, pink, and white confetti. Balancing on an apple box in front of them is a young woman in slightly baggy Levis, a ten-year-old Canon 5D Mark 2 in hand. The couple have come to this 200 square foot studio in Bushwick, Brooklyn for a confetti-themed photoshoot, but they're clearly unsure what to expect. “We’re awkward,” the woman says as they stand side-by-side, their stiff arms barely touching.
“Tell me how you two fell in love,” the photographer, 28-year-old Jelena Aleksich, suggests after taking a few shots of the two uncomfortably standing amongst the sea of paper squares. “Well,” they say in unison, before dissolving into nervous giggles. He picks up the story, but haltingly, something about a dating app and a local bar. An assistant standing off set suddenly throws another armful of confetti and before long they’re speaking over one another, filling in the gaps of their love story, reminiscing on every minute detail. Then they’re hugging, embracing even, kissing as confetti falls around them.
“Like I said, we’re awkward,” the woman insists at the end of the shoot. “And yet here you are,” Aleksich says, “throwing confetti on each other.”
click to see magic
creator of
the confetti project
— jelena Aleksich,
"Everything you see in my work is because of what people bring to the space. I just help facilitate it."
click to see magic
creator of
the confetti project
— jelena Aleksich,
"Confetti equals celebration."
Confetti Project creator Jelena Aleksich photographed in December 2016.
words by alyssa mercante
design by tri vo
photography by jelena Aleksich
can two pounds
of paper scraps
change your
life?
Confetti
Catharsis
