About the project:
This exhibition is an attempt to cast order into the chaos of the objects that surround us. The apparent lack of logic in the selection of these items only serves to highlight the absurdity of the attempt itself.
When we arrange a diverse array of items—land, city, fauna, flora, still life—on a single shelf, in one cupboard, or within a room, we are seemingly trying to bind together characters and destinies that are entirely unrelated. We attempt to bridge eras and nations, cultures and traditions. In a space where eclecticism is the only possible style, we find the opportunity to create our own microcosm—to establish our own laws and break them at will. We are granted the power to create enclosed spaces for life stories of love and betrayal, wealth and poverty, childhood and old age, passion and longing.
The physical appearance, beauty, or functional significance of an object, a flower, or a bird holds no fundamental importance. Mysterious transformations occur not only within us under the influence of these objects, but vice versa. The influence is mutual. Objects begin to take on a life of their own: plants react to moods and reveal character; birds that were once mere interior decor begin to speak or fall silent of their own free will. A candlestick with a guttering candle stump looks at us with reproach; a watch that hasn't worked for years suddenly begins to tick; an antique doll falls; an orchid we thought had withered begins to bloom.
Cult objects lose their existential meaning, while worthless and nearly invisible items suddenly become significant, ascending to epic heights. Books we opened and read with reverence in our youth lose their inner and outer luster, while a cheap piece of glass is revealed to be a precious gem.
To mask the outcry of nature's absence in the urban space, we fill clay vessels with water and place within them flowers uprooted from the earth, knowing they will not last more than a week. We repeat this ritual over and over: vase, water, flowers...
Locked within the boxes of our apartments, we endlessly rearrange various items on shelves. Memories come to life; broken toys are revived. We bring butterflies back to life and watch as they flutter their wings from object to object, from event to event, from the inanimate to the living. We attribute to parrots the capacity for listening and understanding, for sarcasm and wisdom. We decorate and beautify our lives so they do not seem quite so frightening—so we do not have to think about death.
The proximity between objects on a shelf takes on a cryptic meaning, connecting destinies and mingling religions. Continents and countries swap places; journeys never end; lovers never part—unless, in a moment of distraction, we move the ballerina to a different spot while dusting. The people in the photographs, frozen many years ago, watch with indifference the domestic bustle, the slow aging of the owner, and the daily routine.
And when this polyphonic silence becomes unbearable, one might decide to leave, to escape. To abandon the objects, to cease the meaningless dialogue with shelves laden with fragments of other people's fates. Useless and useful items, beautiful and ugly, will manage without you, and you without them. To escape! But where? To the seashore, filled with colorful shells of stunning shapes; to foreign cities redolent with exotic scents; to forests and fields where behind every bud and stem hides a wondrous, autonomous world—a world where we are redundant.
Ultimately, we are forced to return from these escapes, real or imagined, and carefully place new acquisitions upon the shelves, acknowledging the comedy and the aesthetic inconsistency of the situation. Having no choice, all that remains for us is to meticulously arrange our collection, to brush away the dust from time to time, to change the flowers, to chase butterflies, to pour our hearts out to the parrots, to raise a glass and whisper a secret incantation:
"To you, my dear and worthless trinkets, beautiful flowers and butterflies, Chinese vases and old photographs; to you, candlesticks and childhood dolls, apples, pomegranates, and oranges with the taste of forbidden fruit; to you, books we loved and will never reopen for fear of disappointment, books we will never read again, birds we will never hear, and lands we will never see. To long life!"