SCULPTURES

2018 - ongoing

The areas central to this work were shaped by the construction of reservoirs along upper part of Volga river during the intensive development of electrification program in 1930-s Russia. Vast territories were flooded and a new shore line appeared. Over 700 villages were relocated. Many localities ended up being on the edge of the flood zone or in the newly emerged waterlogging territories.

The field of artistic interest for this series lays between the notions of place and non-place. They are like two polarities as it was put by Marc Auge: “the first is never completely erased, the second never totally completed”. Even in the long-abandoned localities there are vestiges or little traces of the human activities of the past, which become construction materials for sculptures. These spaces once developed into settlements are absorbed or claimed back by nature therefore locking the lifecycle.

This body of work attempts to reflect on that lifecycle, by reinhabiting the spaces. To rediscover and study them a forensic work is performed. It is followed by recycling found fragments of structures and completing some more materials from the nature in order to secure the new stability. Despite seemingly balanced constructions may suggest longevity these ephemeral interventions are fragile and captured in the moment of their short existence.