Anastasia Sosunova 's exhibition at IN THE CLOSET in Tromsø

February 8, 2021
Author Echo Gone Wrong
IN THE CLOSET⃣ Is proud to present Anastasia Sosunova’s exhibition with works from series of objects belonging to the ongoing project “Metallic Taste in Your Mouth”
Inspired by the Eastern European celebratory Karavai pies which are used in traditional rituals such as weddings as a gesture of acceptance to the family or a community, Sosunova bakes Karavais and pie frames in her own manner: revealing metallic cores with monstrous etchings and apocalyptic imagery. By engraving hybrid beings and diluvian landscapes, the author attempts to tame and find comfort in the realms that are inhabited by the excommunicated. Monstrosity here appears as a force of liberation from tradition and normativity and points towards an alternative. In this sense, as Hardt and Negri propose, “we can recognise these monstrous metamorphoses of the flesh as not only a danger but also a possibility, the possibility to create an alternative society”.
Diluvian Cracker, 2021
Salt dough, etched zinc, varnish, stickers, metal, epoxy resin, linen fiber
Wrestler’s Luncheon, 2019
Salt dough, etched zinc, varnish, stickers, metal, epoxy resin
The children of the revolution are always ungrateful, 2020
Salt dough, etched zinc, varnish, stickers, metal, epoxy resin
Anastasia Sosunova (b. 1993) is a visual artist living in Vilnius. Sosunova has a Bachelor’s degree in Graphic art and a Master’s degree in Sculpture from the Vilnius Academy of Arts, and uses a variety of media such as sculpture, video, installation, graphic art and writing in her practice. Has recently shown her work at 2nd Riga Biennial of Contemporary Art (Latvia), the National Gallery (Lithuania), Cubitt (UK), I: project space (China) and The Sunroom (US).
Sosunova’s multidisciplinary practice, combining video, installation, graphics and sculpture, grows from personal histories and their entanglements within broader cultural, economical and spiritual structures. Her work focuses in particular on the bonds around which communities are forged, from local vernacular art to social neighborhoods to religious organisations. She observes how these closed groups are developed, often in reaction to other values or beings, and how they subsist through shared sentiments and the development of rituals, traditions and collective agreements.
Through a process of distortion and the interweaving of elements belonging to old mythologies, hybrid entities and the surveillance society, Sosunova creates alternative forms of ‘contemporary folklore’. Spanning lifestyle concepts to pillars of belief, these new folklores are at once a play with notions of home and belonging, a questioning of existence and coexistence, and a critical view on structures of power and the psychology of collectivity. Her work serves as a proposition for new ways of living by rules, ethics, codes and agreements between beings.
To choose available date and time of viewing contact via sms: 92213091 or by email intheclosetspace@gmail.com
Anastasia Sosunova
12-14 February, 2021
IN THE CLOSET
Fiskergata 2,
9008 Tromsø,
Norway