Photo video documentation of the performance (2024)
TOM THUMB
performance documentation, courtesy of the artist
TOM THUMB
performance documentation, courtesy of the artist
TOM THUMB
performance documentation, courtesy of the artist
TOM THUMB
performance documentation, courtesy of the artist
''In the story of the boy sleeper, a little boy thanks to his cleverness and courage was able to save the lives of his brothers and his own and find his way home by pebbles. Let's skip the story of why he and his brothers ended up in the woods. It's a terrible story.''
Finding your way home is an important idea to me.
My grandmother came from a family of Old Believers. They were Kerzhak masons. Their family fled from Kerzhak (I think the third wave of Nikon's resettlement) and lived in the village of Solonovka in Altai. During the Soviet time the family was de-kulakised, great-grandfather was shot, grandmother and great-grandmother had to flee. grandmother lived all her life near Ust-Kamenogorsk in the Eastern Kazakhstan.
I don't know much about this part of my family's history (photos and a short story from my grandmother remain) but I feel incredibly connected, both in my artistic practice and in my everyday life.
I would like to visit both Kerzhak and Altai, to collect and scatter stones them in both places, building a symbolic path (bridge) home, Ideally to visit Solonovka village to talk to the locals, maybe to collect some material.