Sculptures

Sculptural research started in 2018 follows eroding shoreline of the reservoir on Volga River in Russia. Photography is used to witness temporary structures made of ruins and fragments in attempt to rethink unstable post-soviet identities.

The geography of the series covers the Upper Volga region, which was flooded during the creation of the Rybinsk Reservoir in the early 1940s. As a result of the engineering work involved in the construction of the Rybinsk hydroelectric complex, 4,580 km² of land was flooded, more than 500 settlements were resettled, and a new coastline was formed. A large number of villages disappeared or found themselves in the zone of submersion or temporary flooding of the reservoir. Over the 80 years of the Rybinsk ‘sea’ existence, its coastline has shifted and in some places has receded inland by up to 100 metres.

At the end of spring, the reservoir fills up, the water covers the shores and approaches the forests, washing away the shore. During the summer, the dam in Rybinsk releases a large volume of water, and the shores reopen by autumn, exposing parts of the bottom and places where villages once stood. This annual cycle creates a gap in which the process of entropy continues and building material for sculptures is formed.

The author is interested in the relationship between the concepts of place and non-place, which, according to Marc Augé, ‘are rather like opposed polarities: the first is never completely erased, the second never totally completed.’ Coastal erosion leads to the mixing of disappearing traces of human activity with fragments of the ruined landscape, a constant rewriting of the palimpsest of ‘identity and interrelationships.’

Orthopaedics appears in the sculptures as a metaphor in an attempt to reflect on the processes of memory. The structures take the form of ephemeral interventions in the landscape at the sites of former or existing settlements along the reservoir's continually changing shoreline, with photography serving as a mediator and witness.

The feeling of gaps and lacunae in family memory led the author to attempt to rethink and reflect on them through the practice of long walks and exploration of the reservoir shore. During these visits a forensic work is performed, in the course of which the fragments and ruins found are selected for their tactile qualities. With the addition of elements taken from nature, they form structures in order to secure the new stability.

Work on the series has been ongoing since 2018 and is a continuation of the author's long-standing interest in the historical and cultural context of the Upper Volga region of Russia. Currently, the project includes 36 selected photographs made in 18 locations. Exhibition sizes are 80x100 cm and 120x150 cm, digital c-type prints framed in unpainted wood with glass.