Sonya Umanskaya
Homeland of Fiction
Installation
Metal, sound
210 x 170 x 170 cm
Nostalgia, Architecture of power, Anguish
The title of the project refers to the quote from Jean-Luc Godard’s film «The Kids Play Russian», 1992. In this video essay Godard is reflecting on the image of Russia right after the fall of the Soviet Union through his imaginary travel there that he never took.
This installation is an attempt to investigate values that stay behind the formation of the current political and vernacular narratives in Russia. The research focus is the concept of anguish, which is referred to as one of the core traits shaping the national consciousness.
In her work Sonya Umanskaya is exploring the roots of anguish as a tool to suppress, but, at the same time, to survive. Her sculptural metal construction refers to the intertwinement between prison and faith, building a dialogue between complete opposites, inseparable from each other in the context of Russian culture. The domed space she created is inspired by similarities between prison and sacred orthodox architecture. At the ceiling of the metal construction, the viewer can see a metal plate depicting an image of Oranta, a praying woman that was left alone. The plate is created with the technique of hammering. The installation is accompanied by audio fusing the sound of a hammer blow with a bell ringing from the old church in Moscow which served as a place of executions in Soviet period.
