The project "Where We Will Meet" is relevant both to today’s world in general and to me personally. Due to circumstances, I have been living in exile for more than a year, far from home and my loved ones. My last conversation with my father before his death took place over a video call. For a long time, I read books to my son through a screen as well. Now, any contact with my loved ones is invaluable to me—each interaction becomes priceless. In my creative work, I strive to erase the boundaries and distances between us. As an artist, I explore the theme of meeting in a broader sense: meeting with a miracle, with the unknown, and meeting with oneself on this creative journey.
Working on the project, I mentally return to C.S. Lewis's "The Chronicles of Narnia"—a book I have read many times to my son. In it, magical portals such as the wardrobe, a painting of a ship, or a door in a schoolyard become passages to the wondrous world of Narnia, where children encounter miracles. But sometimes, it is just a wardrobe, just a painting, or just a door, and nothing more. Similarly, between people: sometimes there is a spark, a connection, and sometimes the door remains closed. In the modern world, the algorithms of meetings are transformed by technologies and means of communication that rapidly change our perception. We no longer wait for letters in envelopes or the silhouette of a dear person on the horizon. Now, we can follow the lives of our loved ones in near real-time through social networks. How have the symbols and signs of meetings changed in the digital age? Has their value changed when the world has become accessible “at the push of a button”?
Through this project, I strive to understand: what is the true meaning of meeting in our time? How do technologies and virtual spaces influence us? What forms of meetings become possible, and which, on the contrary, are lost?
To explore the phenomenon of contemporary communication, I turn to the historical technique of manual printing, transforming the themes of meetings, including virtual ones, into an “analog signal.” My works are created using watercolor pigments and paper. This approach allows me to explore all forms of today’s meetings on paper, conveying in colors all the facets and nuances of human interaction.
The project explores the depth and significance of meetings in the modern world, where the physical and virtual intertwine, creating new forms of interaction.
