My grandfather Igor, who unfortunately I did not have a chance to see, was in Chernobyl in 1986 as an engineer and liquidator of the accident. After receiving large doses of radiation, he died of blood cancer, leaving my grandmother Mila alone in a one-room apartment quartet, which was received as a reward for my grandfather’s work. My grandmother, however, had two close friends Valya and Ira, who worked together with Mila and Igor in the same RosAtom Ministry and who also connected their fate to tragedy. In Chernobyl, Valya worked for three months as a secretary, Ira went with her husband only for a few weeks. All three women in the result received the status of "Chernobyl Widows", irreparable health consequences, painful memories.
The accident at the Chernobyl NPP is a disease that has poisoned entire generations. The people who lived through all this horror, who took part in the liquidation, who saw everything in real life, have been forgotten and abandoned like blunders in history. All experienced memories have been incorporated into their way of life, into their typical one-room apartments. This work explores the intersection of present and past, the indistinguishable consequences of the catastrophe and the permanence of the place.
The installation is an image of a typical Khrushchev apartment in which Ira, Mila and Valya still live. Each heroine has her own room, which represents her perceptions of the past and today.
My grandfather Igor, who unfortunately I did not have a chance to see, was in Chernobyl in 1986 as an engineer and liquidator of the accident. After receiving large doses of radiation, he died of blood cancer, leaving my grandmother Mila alone in a one-room apartment quartet, which was received as a reward for my grandfather’s work. My grandmother, however, had two close friends Valya and Ira, who worked together with Mila and Igor in the same RosAtom Ministry and who also connected their fate to tragedy. In Chernobyl, Valya worked for three months as a secretary, Ira went with her husband only for a few weeks. All three women in the result received the status of "Chernobyl Widows", irreparable health consequences, painful memories.
The accident at the Chernobyl NPP is a disease that has poisoned entire generations. The people who lived through all this horror, who took part in the liquidation, who saw everything in real life, have been forgotten and abandoned like blunders in history. All experienced memories have been incorporated into their way of life, into their typical one-room apartments. This work explores the intersection of present and past, the indistinguishable consequences of the catastrophe and the permanence of the place.
The installation is an image of a typical Khrushchev apartment in which Ira, Mila and Valya still live. Each heroine has her own room, which represents her perceptions of the past and today.
Serafima Bresler - Contemporary Artist
My artist practice is concentrated on exploring the domestic space, both mental and physical. I believe that the personal space, especially the house, is an environment in which there is a high concentration of images, thus it becomes a real mental event, sometimes revealing deep, archetypal levels of the psyche. The house resembles a tool for examining collective memory, the meaning of the family, and my function in it, as well as the feeling of fear and the fight against anxiety. These themes are traced as well as researched through dissecting images of the mundane. In psychology the notion of «image» is interpreted ambiguously: it can be «seen», stored in memory, reproduced, imagined, i.e. it reveals various mental depth. However, the image is always our own inner space created by the play of our imagination, i.e. it is always poetic.
I am interested in mundane objects whose function is simple and natural, but which are charged with multiple aspects of emotions and states and preserved valuable memories. Choosing one of the real objects and transforming its image through various artistic manipulations, it becomes the intermediate target, showing a piece of reality and my attitude, becoming a metaphor in my poetics. The poetics serve for me in a form of finished installation: a collection of images in a single space that interprets a certain story to the viewer.
I have vided experience of image-making. I open to commerce. If you wish to see my portfolio you are welcome to the "Commission Project" section.
