Contemporary jewelry (ENG)

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Mask it!

When I was a child, I used to visit my girlfriend after school almost every day. Often her mother met us with a cabbage leaf stuck under her eye. It turned out that this is a folk remedy for bruises, so that they pass faster. No one told me directly, but it was clear that the bruises on her face did not appear for nothing, but because her husband, an ordinary-looking man, was beating her.

A woman with a cabbage on her face is a memorable image and I made an object in which silver elements with crystals can be replaced, if necessary, with spokes holding a cabbage leaf under the eye (silver castes with crystals are rearranged at the ends of the arches). The central part of the object on the bridge of the nose indicates the scale of the problem of domestic violence in Russia, repeating the shape of "sechka", a device that can easily and quickly chop cabbage.

Title: Mask it
Type: mask
Year: 2021
Materials: brass, steel, silver, Swarovski crystal
Size: 15 x 8cm

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Boys don't cry!

On average, men commit suicide about 1.8 times more often than women, and in Russia 6.5 times more often. One of the reasons for this imbalance is gender stereotypes that do not allow men to have any help in time.

This work is a fragile heart-shaped glass vessel in which a man is forced to carry his experiences. The tears in it accumulate and turn into crystals until the vessel bursts.

Title: Boys don't cry!
Type: necklace
Year: 2020
Materials: glass flask, wood, silver, alexandrites, zircon, quarz, crystal, rubber cord
Size: 17 x 8 x 7cm

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Wedding rings!

A pair of classic wedding rings, but inside the female one you can see a small sharp element, shaped like a rose thorn. Both rings are equally easy to put on, but it is painful and scary to remove a ring with a spike.

So in a patriarchal society, it is more difficult for a woman to leave a relationship for a variety of reasons, ranging from condemnation and humiliation by relatives to the financial dependence of a woman with children on a man.

Title: Wedding rings
Type: rings
Year: 2020
Materials: silver, gilding
Size: 16mm, 22mm

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Dovecotes series

In my artistic practice, I explore my national identity and try to find and feel a connection with the country I live in, because this is not that easy in modern Russia for many reasons.

The only things that make me really proud of my country are those that are made by real people of their own volition, but not a government, a church institution, or corporations.
Dovecotes are one such example for me. In any Russian city, you can find houses for pigeons built by residents. Even in such a huge and modern city as Moscow, it is easy to find a dovecote in the courtyard of huge panel houses.

Russian dovecotes are specific, often built illegally, from improvised materials and garbage, but wholeheartedly and with sincere love for the birds that live in them.
Needless to say, the city government often demolish dovecotes. This explains the way my works look like: the nets are torn, the pigeons have flown away.

Title: Dovecotes series
Type: ring and 2 brooches
Year: 2020-2021
Materials: brass, silver, steel, patina
Size: 6 x 2 x 2,5cm, 6,5 x 8,5 x 1cm, 6,5 x 4,5 x 1cm

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Collar

Creating this work, I reflected on the relations in Russian families in general and in my family specifically. A typical family in Russia can be called a family where a woman raises children alone. After a divorce, the children almost always stay with their mother, and the fathers often do not take any part in the upbringing, even financially.

As a feminist, I am certainly concerned about this state of affairs and I'm angry at men who allow themselves to leave their own children without support. But as a person and a daughter, I feel very different. Despite the fact that after my parents divorce, my brother and I were raised by my mother, and my father came to see us very rarely, I always loved him and never blamed.

About this paradoxical situation of my life, I made a necklace "Collar". The very shape of my work repeats the traditional female element of clothing – a lace collar. It is made of metal and reliably protects like armor. Just like a maternal care protects children. However, the center of the necklace is also a classic pendant with a photo of my dad inside and a sharp spike adjacent to the skin. I sealed the pendant so that it could never be opened again, probably only ashes remained inside. Nevertheless, a sharp thorn does not allow me to forget about the existence of a painful experience of life in a family where one parent is always unavailable.

Title: Collar
Type: Necklace
Year: 2021
Materials: brass, textiles, photo
Size: 25 x 25 x 8cm

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Kommunalki

Я много лет жила в съемных квартирах. Снимать доступную однушку на самой окраине Москвы мне не хотелось, поэтому я, как и многие молодые люди, находила комнаты в больших квартирах с другими жильцами, но зато в самом центре! Опыт жизни с соседями стал важным периодом в жизни и много дал мне. Приезжая из разных городов России, мы все привозили с собой уникальный опыт и делились им друг с другом.

В серии работ из трёх брошей я повторяю планы квартир, в которых я жила и помещаю в каждую из «комнат» землю, привезённую из тех городов, откуда мы с соседями приехали в Москву. Земля каждого из нас со временем высыпается через открытые двери и смешивается. Так и мы обменивались своим опытом друг с другом, когда жили вместе.