Natasha Yudina. My Kremlin
My Kremlin is an installation assembled in a separate space. The miniature Kremlin was made on a 3D printer. It is surrounded by knitted rug walls from two to four meters high, called Sweater and Sweater 2. The exhibition also includes “snow” that falls around the Kremlin, a soundtrack that includes the peal of the bells, and a video that shows the artist in the process of “knitting” the Kremlin.
My Kremlin is a serious conversation had through the fanciful. The knitted canvas with the “silly” decoration, which is both a warm winter sweater and a rug, is a changeless symbol of Soviet prosperity and comfort. It recalls the endless Siberian forests and fields, as well as the just-as-endless and permanent Siberian frost. During the artwork’s creation (which can be seen in the video) the artist creates this space around herself – she knits Russia, weaving her own, and possibly our communal, future.
Natasha Yudina:
“My Kremlin might just as well have been named My Home Kremlin. Like Pushkin, it is always with us. The Kremlin actually exist in the real world, and important things happen there. Even some really important things. But for me the Kremlin is a picture on TV at New Year’s that you see when the bells ring. When there’s snow on the ground and your family is sitting around the holiday table, there’s a rug on the wall, the tree next to the television set is all lit up, there’s Olivier salad on the table, a china set in the cabinet, champagne in the glasses, the air smells like tangerines, and the snow is whirling around outside. And then the president (the nice man on the TV with the familiar face) is wishing us a Happy New Year.
My Kremlin is a serious topic explored on a non-serious way, through the homey, the cosy, and the heartfelt.
Through the knitted sweater with the cinema-lover society member’s pin. Through the monotone sweater with the silly design. It’s winter. It’s cold. The climate is severely continental. You have to wear a sweater.
Through a toy, maybe a stuffed bear on the couch.
Through images that are even more dear and close to me. How does that go again? “The river and the blue skies, it’s all mine, my own… My motherland, my home.”
My Kremlin is also about the things we’ve known since childhood. “What is good and what is bad”, wash your hands before you eat, bread is the staff of life, and other such things….
So in short, that’s My Kremlin”.
