where is my little flower? in the east
A project realised within the framework of the residency in Zaraysk.
An installation comprising video and objects: glassworks, tracing‑paper graphics, and artefacts recovered from the factory site.
Location: the Machtet House, “Reboot” Festival (Zaraysk).
At the heart of the project lies the abandoned Krasny Vostok (Red East) factory. Once filled with the hum of machines and human voices, it is now gradually being reclaimed by nature. Grasses and trees sprout through the concrete, and plants become the new inhabitants of a space that preserves the memory of thousands of human destinies.
Exploring the ruins of the former factory, artist Anna Slobozhanina creates a metaphorical botanical atlas of memory. Here, each plant is not a mere botanical specimen, but a vessel of human history. The artist gazes upon the grasses and flowers that have taken root among the crumbling walls, as if assembling a herbarium of memories — a tribute to the people who once brought this space to life.
This atlas emerges in dialogue with the graphic sketches of Anna Golubkina, for whom nature was a language of inner experience and attentive observation of the world. Following this vision, Slobozhanina treats plants as silent witnesses of time — guardians of memory where human voices have long since fallen silent.
A special place in this narrative is given to the women who laboured at the factory for decades. Their work, which left almost no material traces, endures in this fragile botanical archive. The plants growing through the ruins become symbols of memory, the continuity of generations, and life’s ability to return — even to spaces of loss.
Much of the work is crafted in glass — a material at once fragile and enduring. It evokes the surface of water and time: it allows us to glimpse the past, yet keeps it just out of reach. Glass herbariums, found objects, and shards of factory windows become repositories of memory, where every flower stands as an image of an individual human life.
The project’s title alludes to the ancient quest for a magical flower — a timeless tale of hope and wonder. Yet the true flower here is memory itself: like the first plants emerging from the ruins, it sprouts through time, again and again.
2026
"Reboot" Festival Website
A project realised within the framework of the residency in Zaraysk.
An installation comprising video and objects: glassworks, tracing‑paper graphics, and artefacts recovered from the factory site.
Location: the Machtet House, “Reboot” Festival (Zaraysk).
At the heart of the project lies the abandoned Krasny Vostok (Red East) factory. Once filled with the hum of machines and human voices, it is now gradually being reclaimed by nature. Grasses and trees sprout through the concrete, and plants become the new inhabitants of a space that preserves the memory of thousands of human destinies.
Exploring the ruins of the former factory, artist Anna Slobozhanina creates a metaphorical botanical atlas of memory. Here, each plant is not a mere botanical specimen, but a vessel of human history. The artist gazes upon the grasses and flowers that have taken root among the crumbling walls, as if assembling a herbarium of memories — a tribute to the people who once brought this space to life.
This atlas emerges in dialogue with the graphic sketches of Anna Golubkina, for whom nature was a language of inner experience and attentive observation of the world. Following this vision, Slobozhanina treats plants as silent witnesses of time — guardians of memory where human voices have long since fallen silent.
A special place in this narrative is given to the women who laboured at the factory for decades. Their work, which left almost no material traces, endures in this fragile botanical archive. The plants growing through the ruins become symbols of memory, the continuity of generations, and life’s ability to return — even to spaces of loss.
Much of the work is crafted in glass — a material at once fragile and enduring. It evokes the surface of water and time: it allows us to glimpse the past, yet keeps it just out of reach. Glass herbariums, found objects, and shards of factory windows become repositories of memory, where every flower stands as an image of an individual human life.
The project’s title alludes to the ancient quest for a magical flower — a timeless tale of hope and wonder. Yet the true flower here is memory itself: like the first plants emerging from the ruins, it sprouts through time, again and again.
Text: Tatyana Getman
2026
"Reboot" Festival Website
Series of Objects “where is my little flower? in the east”
7 pieces, each 20×30 cm.
7 pieces, each 20×30 cm.
Materials: glass, tracing‑paper graphics (needle embossing technique), artefacts found at the factory: spinning machine parts, fragments of the atrium in the spinning workshop, pearls.
Object
Materials: glass and metal — a found factory component (a cover from a yarn bobbin), pearls
2023 © Anna Slobozhanina