TAM GDE NAS NET
VYKSA art-residence, Vyksa, 2018
Steel, laser cutting, etching
The announced theme of the residence was “Lenin Street”. For me it refers not to the place in the space, but to the period of time, to the era with its special chronicle, slogans and promises. The era that I didn’t live in, but I can perceive it by different remains, numerous rusting artifacts, movies, and stories of older generations.
The main material of the exhibition is steel, and it is also the key resource for Vyksa. At the same time steel is the symbol of the labor feat and the whole soviet era with the largest production in the world. Even the soviet man seemed to be cast from metal. The touch of rust is the sign of time and the contact between utopia and reality. The red color turns dark brown, and slogans become empty words, but they leave the marks in the armour of time. This exhibition is the memory of my generation, which found only the collapse of that great era.
