between the sea and the lake there is a swamp

installation, sculptures made of metal, ceramics, and artificial pearls

location: Lobby (Moscow)

Lobby x 3L gallery

What lies beneath the mirror-like surface of the water, beneath the cool silence of the crystal-clear lake region? At night and before dawn, this monochrome, transparent surface, with its soft gradations of halftones, reflects hosts and meridians of stars, shimmering and shining like a fleeting memory or a fleeting vision. The flickering of the stars is as constant as the comforting fragility of human memory. It seems as if you've just captured that cherished fragment of childhood—running through a dew-damp field, dreaming of plucking water lilies and seeing a mermaid's emerald tail—and then, in an instant, the feeling vanishes, as if dissolved in a veil of fog, leaving behind awkward traces of nostalgia for the past, and perhaps even a longing for the lost divine. These flashes of consciousness lack specific meanings; they possess mysterious allusions and free associations, where each is free to discern their own meaning in fragments, sensual outlines, and the exciting twists of their own fantasies.

Slobozhanina is a multidisciplinary artist who works with mythical archeology, utopian themes, and complex textures: from ceramic and metal objects studded with pearl beads, she creates unprecedented artifacts, fairytale-like, phantom images that are impossible to attribute in traditional ways. Strokes of swamp green and blue, flashes of mother-of-pearl are found on the sculpted backs of toads, inhabitants and guardians of the underwater kingdom, and on patterned amulet roots—as if resurrecting medieval sculpture or continuing the modernist line of form-making. At the core of her strategy is the primordial world of an unknown/lost civilization, described in the poetic language of metaphor, in which transformation becomes the only form of knowledge and salvation through an appeal to the phenomena of memory, alienation, and broken connections in the modern world. But how this world exists, and whether it even exists, remains a mystery.

exhibition page on the Lobby website

exhibition page on the 3L Gallery website

2025 ​​​​