Описание

Nika Nikulshina
And gardens have bloomed in my home, 2023

print on dibond
30 × 90 cm

Artist’s Quote:

This work was created for June 12, 2023—»Russia Day.» A year and a half after the invasion of Ukraine. Two years into my emigration. Bread, which should be a symbol of life, became a carrier of mold. I used a soldering iron—in Russian prison practice, this is an instrument of torture. Here it becomes a tool of cultivation. Violence has long been soldered into the fabric of everyday life.

Mold grows where it’s warm and there’s a nutrient medium. Russian soil bears fruit with corpses. My bread branched out with mycelium, like a state devouring itself and everything around it. It rotted in a warm, stuffy vacuum back then, in the summer of 2023.

Only photographs remain.