MARKET
2023
Site-specific Installation (photography, textile with hand-printed text, objects)
In June 2023 during a residency in Wrocław, I walked around the local Sunday marketplace and found myself being surrounded by still lifes with crucifixions. Randomly organised these still lifes stood out against the chaos of the flea market. They have resonated with my research on collective identity and became a starting point for the Market installation.
Originally the “market” (ἀγορά / agorá in Greek), in addition to being a trading place, functioned as a forum were political and social issues were addressed and discussed. From this twin function of agora as both a commercial and political gathering space came the two Greek verbs: ἀγοράζω “I shop” and ἀγορεύω “I speak in public”.
Agora is the major symbol of democracy, which is one of the most prominent value patterns of the global North. In my installation I try to address the ambivalent development of the democracy today with new ethic and aesthetic norms being represented among the others through the Internet, our new agora.
On the other hand for the Cristian world Jesus Christ is an ultimate symbol of the Truth. Multiplied and reproduced crucifixion being publicly exposed for sale, taking a grotesque and kitsch form, represents for me the new reality we live in, where reproduction and distortion of the information is a common practice in the media which has become our main field for information, presentation, trade and trial. Our acknowledgement of this situation does not prevent us from accepting it on a daily base as well as all the exposed violence that we are watching everyday as pictures of disasters, war murders and tortures.
Anthony Burgess in his dystopian novel “A Clockwork Orange”, later visualised by Stanley Kubrick, describes the Ludovico Technique, which is a form of aversion therapy in which the patient was exposed to violent scenes without being able to close his eyes. Meeting these crucifixions on the market I couldn't help not to think about all the death, sufferings and persecutions that are not only happening as a result of the war going on in Europe right now, but also being publicly exposed and viewed on-line; the cost of life and trade of values.
At the same time these still lifes reminded me of Belarusian interiors, where I grew up. In their attempt to decorate a house it would be typical to built up an “art collection” were crucifixions or icons would be neighbours to decorative knifes, reproductions of paintings, ceramics, vases, small statues and other souvenirs. Striving to comprehend the situation in my home country I go back to one of the insights I took up in my previous works: “We never know what is in another person’s mind”.
In my childhood in Belarus we had a game, that was common for all post-Soviet states, called “Secret”. To make a “Secret” one would have to dig a little hole in the ground and put some treasures inside. That could be found objects as well as small dead animals, birds of insects. To make the “Secret” complete one would have to cover the hole with a transparent glass plate. This way the “Secret” would stay safe and at the same time visible to the others.
By interpreting this game, I reflect upon the paradoxical feature of human nature: the desire to both share and preserve, expose and hide. This game for me plays the role of a key that reveals the confrontation between public and private, external and internal, individual and group. It became also a metaphor for the current situation in my home county. In my installation “Secrets” are loosing transparency and getting the bloody color, turning into reflections and fresh graves.