The project "FRAgMEntS" is a conceptual installation that aims to create a dialogue with the existing space, to challenge such terms as [introspective], [fragility], [reflection] and [trauma].
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For more than a year the humanity experiences deep changes – in priorities, life philosophies, relationships and communication. For some people this period was filled with insights, for others – with traumas and losses. By means of art installation I would like to highlight these problems, to show the fragility of each of us, to reveal the trauma and to search for the ways to heal it.
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I’ve started the following project in December 2020 in Korinthos, Greece, where I stay since the beginning of the second quarantine. Being isolated from the biggest part of my family, from my friends and people I love, I started searching for a different source of inspiration, and I found it in the power of the space and the environment I was staying at. The sea and the mountains, the sand and the wind have become my new companions, turning monologues into dialogues, reflecting my thoughts, and fulfilling the gaps I’ve got because of isolation and losses. Thus, I decided to make an installation that would be an artistic response to all the above-mentioned issues.
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Experiments with the mirror as a medium resulted into installation in the shape of a chair made of the pieces of mirror of the same size (7x15 cm). Thus, there was made a model of the chair in a smaller scale (1:2). The chair is associated with a person, with an observer, while the trauma is symbolized by the broken leg of the chair and its absence.
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As an artist, I propose a few ways of healing the trauma:
- by changing the context for the chair: instead of being a damaged household item with a limited function, locked within the walls of the house, I take it out of this context and insert it into a different one – the context of natural space. In this way I prove the idea that we are a reflection of the world that is around us. Reflecting the beauty, we become the beauty itself; reflecting the power, we become more powerful by ourselves;
- by substituting the missing leg of the chair with the natural material of the environment – sand, ground or pebbles, thus, returning balance and stability to the chair.
Thus, I have 2 proposals, depending on the circumstances:
- If it is shown in the gallery space, I would like to recreate the following chair in a true scale (1:1), substituting the missing leg with the ground material taken from the local environment. In this way, the installation would be available for exhibiting and make a dialogue with an artistic space of the gallery.
- If it is shown in the open space and if it is planned to invite the locals to collaborate, there could be done a number of chairs in the smaller scale (1:2), and each participant could heal the trauma by substituting the missing leg of the chair by himself, with the help of local ground material. So, the installation would reflect the surrounding environment, have an interactive character and work out as an art-therapy for the participants.
Additionally, I am going to create an experimental video showing the integration of the installation with different environments. The first trial video is created using the installation model in scale 1:2 in Korinthos environment.
