Description

A take on the inevitable burden of patriarchal legacy and an attempt to escape it by concealing the borrowed personality in the fictitious memory.

«I’m a product of what others have invested in me. The apriority of parents, the automation of high school, being in love with university lecturers. In my parents are their parents, in turn, their love, and their blindness. And so on, into the depths – it’s all the same. Every artifact from my ancestral tribe built me up. Each led to the unavoidability of my appearance. Every line of the letters of her lover to my mother crystallised her understanding of my future father. Proof by contradiction. All of it came together at one point – in me. I was deprived of the subjunctive. Parents are an authority that can only be shaken with a lot of effort. They shine through in phrases and gestures. If you want to offend someone close to you, compare them with their parents. The goal is dissimilarity. You don’t want to be reflected in their eyes…»

Ksenia Yurkova (1984) is an artist, curator, and researcher. Her leading artistic media is text, photography, video, and installation. The main focus of interest is communication and language: the varieties of its substance, the possibility of conversion, mythological aspects, stereotyping (personal and political identification), problems of memory, attitudes, and reliance. Lately, the artist has researched the phenomenon of affect in its autonomous bodily emanation; in personal and political registers. Yurkova has taken part in numerous shows and festivals worldwide and has been awarded several stipends. Her works are in public and private collections, mainly in Russia, Germany, France, Finland, and Austria. At present, Yurkova operates AIR InSILo (Austria).