Song of the lost soldier - part 2

  - Tell us about your “Texts” series, reminiscent of the work of Emma Hauck. Did you draw inspiration from the drawings of preschool children with schizophrenia, or perhaps from Egyptian hieroglyphic writing?

- I was very impressed by this story with Mrs. Hauck. In general, I am very interested in the topic of madness. And yes, I am a big fan of children's creativity, I try to draw inspiration from this, but it seems to me that this door is locked with a very heavy lock at some point for a person, and I am no exception. But I do not lose hope of re-connecting with this world and at the moment I continue to look for loopholes.

As for the texts that are more understandable to our eyes, these are some notes, scraps of letters, war reports, letters to nowhere, to those who are no longer or who cannot be found ... The confused speech of madmen, which sometimes we can catch and have time to write down.

Actually, the texts themselves are written in the manner of some kind of encryption - military documents, as if their author had lost his mind, and in his head thoughts, actions and fears begin to spin in a wild round dance of chaos and horror, taking him into this abyss.

I also have several works that represent a semblance of letters of thought, sometimes addressed to someone who no longer exists or who will never be found, but longing and sadness for them make the words pour out on paper, and sometimes it’s like running between burning trees and wild pursuit of that , about whom it is impossible to speak.

- About misanthropic walks and foundation art: you have been collecting the remains of history near the shores of reservoirs and ruined buildings for a long time - tell us about the most interesting finds (I would especially like to know about the sword).

- Hmm, a difficult question, during all these walks a lot of interesting objects were found, but if you highlight something, then for me it is a copper plate in the shape of a circle, about 1 mm thick, a silver pepper shaker of 1874, a porcelain figurine depicting a soldier and a sailor who are following a trail (however, the glaze is already so worn out that it is difficult to understand who it is and what). In general, I have a special relationship with things, often I am the only one who sees some beauty or possible usefulness in the found object.

And the sword is a joke, like a lot of what I do, but many people believed in this joke. Not so long ago, on one engraving, I saw a variant of a sword, unusual in its simplicity, and decided to try to reproduce it, since I had a suitable piece of iron.

I made the base of the blade, made a guard and then buried it next to my workshop for several months, then decided to excavate the place where the sword was buried - to make them with archaeological precision, and document it properly (using my favorite, time-tested old digital soap boxes, so that all this still smacks of modern antiquity, antiquity of the 2000s).

- What do you think about the slow fading of flea markets and the in-head escape from hoarding?

- I hear about the withering of flea markets in St. Petersburg from about the same moment I learned about their existence. The only moment when my heart sank - during self-isolation, people in flea markets even after the restrictions were lifted for about a month, but over time everything returned to normal, and now in these places everything is the same as it was before.

As my interests expanded, my desires and needs for what exactly I would like to collect expanded, the understanding that there are forced or impulsive purchases also gradually grew. Now I try to be extremely careful in these things.

- Could you tell us about the objects that you made for the film “The Life of Goreslav the Alien” and about the house in the forest, hidden from prying eyes, where the shooting took place.

- For this film, I collected part of the costumes, military ammunition and several interior items for the hero's home.