“It’s as if I’m returning something human to Vladimir Ilyich” – Weekend

About working with casts
This came from academic sculpture, or more precisely from the way it was taught: every summer was devoted to working with the material, various technical practices, there was always a lot of molding, because to cast metal you need to make several casts. I really liked molding – the ability to copy in any material evoked childish delight. And the first thing I started doing, regardless of academic practice, was just molding the human body – right in the dorm room where I lived while I was studying at the academy. Why does copying fascinate me so much? On the one hand, I have a strong attraction to technology in general. On the other hand, when you translate into plaster, you are left with a pure form, and everything that turns into a pure form somehow fascinates me. Maybe this is a feature of my plastic perception: I notice that my work is not so much rational as sensual; the process itself is very important to me. When molding, you see the result only at the end, you don’t know anything during the process – analogue photography, which I did, and ceramics have a similar effect.

About the modern ceramic boom
Clay is available to everyone. In Tbilisi, for example, there are a hundred aspiring female artists and ceramicists who attended several master classes and found themselves in it: everyone already has their own small ceramic enterprise, although their preparation may be limited to two master classes. Ceramics is an accessible, pleasant medium that refers to some of our archaic roots. Clay is very malleable, and in general it can really be turned into anything you want. And it’s as if the overall attitude towards it had changed, because at the moment when I entered, for example, the academy, ceramics was positioned as a lower class art form than sculpture.

About Leninian
At the very beginning, I treated this project as a production of plastic memes: then it existed exclusively on social networks, it was simply a group “Lenin for the Soul” on VKontakte, where I regularly published pictures with new transformations of Lenin’s image, the group grew, there were discussions, reposts, people wrote to me in the comments “oh, do something like this” – I did it and posted it, it was more of a joke. But, apparently, due to the fact that Novosibirsk is a pro-communist city, a number of unpleasant stories happened: someone came to an exhibition in a self-organized gallery of my friends and beat up my works, then some dubious publications and reports began on television. All this pushed me to make some even more provocative forms and play with these moods. Then all this was still a game for me, and not some conscious, serious gesture on the topic of reflection on Soviet symbols, totems, the cult of the leader, it was just funny that people reacted so violently to such stupidity, and I wanted to somehow continue this fun . But then, while preparing the intervention in Shushenskoye, I began to study Lenin’s biography, became sympathetic to some good, interesting aspects of his personality and realized that in fact he did not want such a cult and resisted it in every possible way until his death. I thought that through playing, debunking or ridiculing this totem, I seemed to be returning something human to Vladimir Ilyich. Next year, when it’s the 100th anniversary of his death, I want to pay him a strange tribute to his memory, make a project “Nostalgia for Nothing” – and maybe I’ll let Lenin go forever.

About pedagogy
It’s not that I strived for this, I always wanted to – it was a surprise for me that pedagogy would turn out to be right up my alley. But in my fifth year at the academy, I went to work at an art school, I had groups from four to 16 years old, and with rare exceptions I managed to build a very pleasant, personal, creative contact with everyone. Most children are creative, each develops in his own direction, here, as they say, the main thing is not to spoil it. This is very inspiring, gives a lot of strength and energy. Then I didn’t teach for some time, but I accompanied each of my exhibitions in 2016–2018 with a technology workshop—most often it was molding and working with composites. And then there was a project in an inclusive school in the village of Raisemenovskoye near Serpukhov – with children of a difficult fate, with a bunch of traumas, from families of alcoholics and drug addicts, with the experience of orphanhood. And in an amazing way, my Siberian childhood, which was also associated with some abuse, helped me build very trusting relationships with them and break through the wall of rejection, which is their protection. There were other artists there, they all noticed that it was quite difficult for them with children who had such life experience, but for me with such children it was easy, as if my trauma sounded in unison with their trauma. There was one boy, a teenager, whom everyone called by his last name, because in the foster families from which he always ran away, his name was often changed and he had problems with self-determination. He was restless, inflexible, and emotionally unstable, but I managed to make friends with him, come to an agreement, and interest him in artistic pursuits: every 15 minutes he climbed out the window and ran away, but then returned and completed the work. His work caused a scandal during the opening. He made a funny critical assemblage dedicated to the real heroes of this village, alcoholics near the store from whom he, as a teenager, asked to buy him cigarettes: there a bottle of vodka was like an obelisk around which they, drunk, were lying. Everyone knew what kind of alcoholics they were and that they bought cigarettes for teenagers, but the village women came, saw his work and, just like the canon, shouted: “This cannot be shown. It’s true, but you can’t show it like that.” This aroused the interest of journalists who came to the opening – he had already run off to play football, so they found him on the football field: “Hello, we want to interview you about your work.” He tells them: “Wait.” I went back to school, put on all my best clothes, the most beautiful cap, T-shirt, sneakers, went out, gave interviews and was terribly proud of myself. And after that he continued to draw – everyone in their class said that he was now some kind of artist.