A Many-Splintered Thing
18 July - 12 September 2015
Curated by Greg McCartney and Susanne Stich
Void is delighted to present its first group photographic exhibition, ‘A Many-Splintered Thing’. The show is curated by Greg McCartney and Susanne Stich, and features selected works by BiekeDepoorter, Irina Popova, Jana Romanova and Nadia Sablin.
Employing a documentary aesthetic and revealing aspects of their subjects’ everyday lives, the photographs on show scrutinise notions of home, family and love from four distinct perspectives. The viewer is confronted with a collection of intimate moments, many of which are at odds with common perceptions of ‘what love looks like’. Common denominators in all of these works are their ordinariness and emphasis on human vulnerability.
Three of the photographers (Popova, Romanova and Sablin) were born in Russia toward the end of the Soviet regime. Romanova still lives in the country, in St. Petersburg, Popova is now based in Holland, while Sablin resides in Brooklyn, New York. Depoorter, the fourth photographer, is Belgian, but travelled extensively along the Trans-Siberian railway line. As a result, the show provides a fascinating glimpse of contemporary Russia from within and without.
The show title is a pun based on the phrase 'love is a many splendored thing' and stolen from a Sisters of Mercy song 'Ribbons'. The original source is a 1950s Hollywood film/song: Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing. ‘A Many-Splintered Thing’, on the other hand, ties in with a distrust of first appearances and overwhelming narratives of any sort which contemporary visual culture is frequently awash with. The exhibition puts forward images of love in the face of poverty or deprivation, political instability, or simply the fact ofbeing part of a family and trying to, or having to, fit in. Many of the photographs suggest love in all its complexity, encompassing its origins, mutations and overarching force. They feature traces of romantic love, love of family, others, and love of self, implying how ultimately, ‘love involves a peculiar unfathomable combination of understanding and misunderstanding.’ (Diane Arbus).
Works included (selected images):
‘OuMenya’ (meaning ‘with you’) BiekeDepoorter
‘For three periods of one month, I have let the Trans-Siberian train guide me alongside forgotten villages, from living room to living room. Some Russian words, scribbled on a little piece of paper, allowed me to be welcomed and absorbed in the warm chaos of a family. Accidental encounters led me to the places where I could sleep. The living room, the epicenter of their life, establishes an intimate contact between the Russian inhabitants. For a brief moment, I was part of this. Their couch became my bed for one night.’
Statement from artist website.
‘Anfisa’s family/ Another family’ Irina Popova
‘They were living in a darkness, mixing day and night, behind the thick curtains, descending to the street only to ask for some money for the cheap alcohol (they already couldn’t buy any drugs). Their daughter was with them all the time and she was looking at all this with wide-open eyes, tried to touch and to taste everything. They fed her with expensive artificial milk, dragged her away from dangerous things, changed her diapers and said, “Anfisa, stop. Anfisa, go to sleep!”’
Interview with the artist.
‘Waiting’ Jana Romanova
‘Young Russian couples, inhabitants of Saint-Petersburg and Moscow, are sleeping in their bedrooms early in the morning, the time when people don’t really care about their appearance, being natural. They are preparing to become parents in few months, and the project investigates not only their attitude to each other during the period of expecting a baby, but also the way young families live in big cities of modern Russia, 20 years after the fall of the Soviet Union, the country that will be known to their children only from history books. The project consists of 40 images, like 40 weeks in pregnancy.’
Statement from artist website.
‘Aunties’ Nadia Sablin
‘Aunties is a series detailing the lives of my fathers’ two unmarried sisters, who live in a small village in Russia. Having spent their youth working in big cities, after retirement the women have come back to their childhood home. Alevtina and Ludmila are in their seventies, but they are choosing to return to the traditional way of life… My photographs are an exploration of two women’s reliance on each other, ancestral tradition and land as a means of survival.’
Statement from artist website.