Stateless
Stateless (adj): having no state, mode, or condition of being
Having fled the Soviet Union as a six-year-old Jewish refugee, I carry traces of a culture that I cannot fully remember or completely forget. Through installation I create imagined domestic spaces that explore the ways in which cultural narratives are passed down through generations. I interpret my personal memories, family narratives and historic contexts creating a window into a half-imagined and half-forgotten place.
The Nose
2022
20" x 26" photograph printed on aluminum hung over
a 22" x 27" section of hand-painted wallpaper
This photograph depicts a 3" Stalin paper cut-out balanced on a wood stump. Photography was used by Stalin as a mechanism for deception. I explore how the medium can be pointed back at the figure. The actual monument to Stalin currently resides in a Park of fallen monuments in Moscow and is missing its nose.
Echo 2.4" × 3.9" framed dye diffusion print
Three 2.4" × 3.9" internal dye diffusion prints
Mirror Image Installation view
20x26” photograph over a 9’ x 6’ section of hang-painted wallpaper
Utopia
2022
4" x 6"
Blind embossed matte with a Soviet commemorative stamp
The stamp commemorating Lenin’s 96th Birthday is framed with a blind embossed print that is based on the visual language of the Russian orthodox church. The framed print is hung on hand-painted wallpaper inspired by the walls of the Soviet household I grew up in.
Four 2.4" × 3.9" internal dye diffusion prints
Motherland
Photograph, 24 x 36”
Stateless
2022
10" × 10"
Hand-embossed matte with government issued photograph
In this construction, a government-issued photograph of my grandmother is centered inside an embossed design inspired by children’s book illustrations and typography based on 16th-century Russian Orthodox illuminated manuscripts.
Bureaucratic stamps appeared across government documents including working papers, driver’s licenses, and marriage certificates. Jews were identified as a separate ethnicity on the fifth line of every document.
Six 2.4" × 3.9" internal dye diffusion prints
Lost 11" x 14" Acrylic on paper
Hung on hand painted wallpaper
Currency
2021
2.4" × 3.9"
Internal dye diffusion print
This image of crystal glassware, alcohol and amber
were used as currency in the “grey market” by my family
members to survive in the Soviet Union. The miniature
image is captured with a large format view camera.