Silkscreen/ chalk drawings/ plywood / blackboard paint / variable size

Big installation called Kunst > Everyday Nothing (Art is bigger than the everyday nothing), an interactive, process – based work where the silkscreen printing tehnique is combined with ephemeral chalk drawings on different size blackboards: a blown – up group with multiple referents, from Leonardo da Vinci and his thoughts on time and the instant, to the artists Joseph Beuys, Marcel Duchamp or Yukio Mishima in the idea of “art and life”. The title refers to a mathematical formula and takes us back to our school times with an invitation to intervene with chalks on the blackboards and to reflect upon the meaning of art, its relation to life, the market and History, in addition to questioning the idea of authorship, original and copy.

Chalk drawings / blackboard paint on the wall / variable size

Work is an iconostasis of my childhood animation heroes. I still remember time then pictures of Mickey Mouse and others replaced animation characters in post soviet culture. The story is about facing the cartoon characters from opposite ideological encampments: the transfer stickers of Mickey Mouse during nineties made to forget Topple (or Cheburashka), and Mickey’s admirable self-confidence and cheerfulness was surprising in contrast with perplexed Topple and depressive, complicated Winnie-the-Pooh of the Soviet animation.

Our aesthetic perception mostly comes from the childhood. Before we learn to read our world consists of animation movies and pictures in the books. Animation characters have influencial and even brain washing functions. In the work “Chernobyl – Disneyland” through the information and pictures of animation characters from my childhood and Soviet amusement park (it was finished in Pripyat shortly before Chernobyl disaster) and Disneyland found on the internet, I compare the attitude of two socio political systems to children and people in general.
The creators of Soviet animation characters did not have such fame and power as Walt Disney has and animation characters from Soviet times are different then thouse from Disney’s. Everybody knows Mickey Mouse and his creator, but just part of the world knows Cheburaska.

Investigation: video 5 min./sound – original composition by Anna Ķirse/ 9 parts – embroidery with my own hair / drawing/ 9 parts – typewriter on carbon paper/ original police documents / my own childhood braid / DNA – embroidery with my own hair on satin pillowcase

The work is based on the story of a girl’s childhood memories. The girl had very long hair (up to the knees) and the second shift at school. Living in a small town, she regularly went to her mum’s work to get hair braided before going to the school. It would be a simple ritual, but her mother’s work was unusual. She was an investigator. Sometimes her mother continued the conversation with a detainee while doing the girl’s hair. The girl unintentionally became a witness and observer of complicated processes, which real meaning was mysteriously frightening and hidden. The intimately protective ritual of braiding hair gets a completely different meeting, when brought out of the home.