dowry
installation (space of 60 sq.m.)
media: video and audio installation, sculptures: fabric, porcelain, drawings,
place: Arkhangelsk Museum of Local Lore
I will take my beauty into my white hands, I will take my beauty into dense forests, I will hang my beauty on a white birch tree. It is not the place for it, not at all: when the cold winter comes, white snows will attack. Good people will come bringing sharp axes, they will cut the birch tree, - my beauty will fall on the white snow, it is not the place for it, not at all.
(from the wedding song of the northern region of Russia)
In the project, the artist explores the tradition of the northern bride's lament - a ritual of initiation that symbolizes the moment of death in one manifestation and birth in the next. The work combines a local approach, including immersion in the local context, study of historical artifacts, texts, and a lyrical part - poetry of images from the northern magical forest, maiden divination, and dreams. The project was realized during "Maryin Dom" residency in Chakola village (the Arkhangelsk region), and was first shown at the Arkhangelsk Museum of Local Lore as a multimedia installation, including video, fabric and porcelain sculptures, found objects, a series of drawings, and an exhibition guide.
2020
video object
5.39 minutes
The video was shot in the vicinity of Chakolа village.
Clothing - traditional wedding sarafan "sinyak" from the Arkhangelsk region.
Sound in the video: interpretation of the traditional bride's lament, with words and voice by Anya Slobozhanina.
The video captures a timeless space of mythology, located between the past and the present. It resembles a dream that does not let go, slowing down time around. By putting on the wedding costume and singing the words of the traditional lament, the artist compares herself to the bride.
object № 1
mirror - found in the forest, «fiancé dressed up come to my house for dinner» (divination phrase)
found in the forest near Chakola village
size: h 80sm x w 40sm
Signs, rituals and divination are a space of everyday magic in which the northern girl is always found.
Fortune-telling is a way of looking into the future, taking control of one's fate or accepting the inevitable.
Whoever your parents choose, that's who you'll marry.
object № 2
white braid of tears
material: cotton, hand embroidery
size: l. 400cm
The girl says goodbye to her braid, with her pure white maiden beauty, grieving for her youth. Drop by drop, tears roll from her eyes - inside there is a raging sea.
object № 3
black braids of tears
material: cotton, hand embroidery
size:
h:250cm
w: 200cm
braid l: 400cm
Girlfriends will untangle the maiden's braid and weave it into two - forever.
Two braids like two sad rivers.
Comparing herself to the image of a northern bride, the artist embroidered these objects by hand, creating a dowry.
object № 5
dowry chest
material: plexiglass, metal, porcelain bisque
size:
h:190cm
w:200cm
l:280cm
After going through the initiation rite, it is impossible to go back. Getting married, a girl will bid farewell to her youth but will forever keep the tears shed once. Precious and fragile, they will be hidden in the most secret corner of her soul.
exhibition guide
layout by artist
size: 20cm x 10cm
A separate object in the project is the guide with author's layout, implying individual immersion in the installation space.
