From the Top Shelf by Dina Belenko

I have a phrase which describes me precisely: "My name is Dina and I tell animated stories about inanimate objects”. I'm a person with little paper cities, sugar cubes, a moon from polymer clay, dolls' miniatures, broken cups, a handmade Rube Goldberg machine, repainted puzzles, wire trees, cardboard dragons and spilled coffee...and a photo camera. That's quite essentially me.

Every object around us contains a story folded inside. Things can tell us what they saw, who held them, who accidentally broke them, who lovingly gathered the pieces and repaired them. Telling these stories is like being an explorer in a world of inanimate objects. Or even better — like a film director who has a troupe of inanimate actors who can neither move nor speak, but can still create a narrative.

Most of these photos are a part of small series called "From the top shelf" which were created as a "canvas“ for Marina Fandeeva - an artist who populates her images with different varieties of adorable magical creatures. I tried to create some chaos with drinks and sweets (and, of course, blame these creatures for the mess). Now I'm waiting for them to be drawn. Surely, Marina will came up with something fantastic for these pictures.

All photos by Dina Belenko