A smile is a universal expression that has the same meaning in all cultures in the world. It expresses joy, benevolence, friendship. Research has shown that smiling raises the level of endorphins, an enzyme similar to opiates that palliate pain and improve the mood, like serotonin, which works as an anti-depressant. A smile also strengthens immunity and gets rid of stress. Scientists in Sweden have discovered that smiling is infectious; we can’t keep control of the facial muscles when someone in our vicinity is smiling. Some have come to the conclusion that “the fake smiles of politicians have the opposite effect and provoke in the observer an impression of the unreliability and hypocrisy of the person smiling.”
British scientists have discovered that the smile of a child or a celebrity can provide the same level of cerebral stimulation as a win of sixteen thousand pounds, a smile from a person you love is the equivalent of getting eight and a half thousand pounds and the smile of a friend a hundred and forty five pounds. Psychologists have discovered that even if we are in a bad temper we can lift our mood by forcing a smile.
The solution is clearly close at hand; it is cheap, simple and universal. We cannot blame our problems on anyone else if we are not ready to smile all day long.
Siniša Labrović (HR)
Siniša Labrović was born in 1965 in Sinj. In 1997, he took a degree in Croatian language and literature at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb. He began to go in for the visual arts in 2000. He had his first solo show in the Otok Gallery in Dubrovnik. He has shown his work at numerous collective and solo exhibitions, carried out actions and performances as well as urban interventions, in Croatia – in Dubrovnik, Zagreb, Zadar, Pula, Rijeka, Split, Šibenik, Osijek and Poreč, and abroad – in Novi Sad, Belgrade, Ljubljana, Graz, Carlisle, Reykjavik, Regensburg, Dundee, Istanbul, Paris, Copenhagen, Brussels, Venice, Budapest, Berlin, Dresden, Vienna, Bratislava, Prague, New York, San Sebastian and Lodz. In 2005 he attracted the attention of world media (such as Reuters, BBC, Ansa, New York Post, Guardian, Times, NBC, ABC) with his work Flock.org, a reality show in which the contestants were sheep. In 2007 he won third purchasing prize at the first T-HT/MCA Competition in Zagreb for Family Diary. This work is part of the permanent display of the MCA.
The paper Slobodna Dalmacija proclaimed the performance Gloria done on the Split waterfront one of the five best cultural events in Dalmatia in 2007. In 2010, at the 16th International Theatre Festival in Pula he won the Vjetar prize for the performance of Gloria. His work is kept in the collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb, the Museum of Fine Art in Split, the Museum of Modern Art in Dubrovnik and in private collections. In 2009 he exhibited at the 11th Istanbul Biennial. He represented Croatia at the 13th Venice Architecture Biennale with the Pulska grupa, Hrvoslava Brkušić, Igor Bezinović and Boris Cvjetanović.
sinisa.labrovic@gmail.com
