PRIVET, EVROPA!
3741 (3740.9 to be precise) kilometres is a direct distance between Chelyabinsk, the town where I grew up, and Brussels, the centre of Europe, the unofficial capital of EU.
The project aims to explore the questions of European identity perceived by a foreigner, who very much exists within the European context.
The project started as a website I created, the majority of the work is original photography and video, but it also includes live news feeds and other digital content.
In the project, I explore my relationships with Europe and my experience of beauty, boundary and acceptance. As a kid, I have always perceived the West as some sort of ideal version of heaven, where everything is in order and everything works. At 16 I found myself plucked out of Siberian obscurity and thrown into the world of high fashion, reinforcing these themes. This formed the connection between aesthetic of beauty, fear and rejection.
Fear and repression are presented in the work- overbearing structures, bright lights, altered landscapes. This unconsciously seeps through, memory informed by my upbringing within an oppressive and often dangerous world of 90’s Russia. This imagery becomes intertwined with the subtle symbolism of perceived ideals and structures created by society.
The work is an attempt to capture the inherent beauty and pain of reality, constructed from the stains of memories left behind.