Group show at Mystetskyi Arsenal gallery. Kyiv, Ukraine, September 2018
Participants: MNPL, IRA LUPU, DIMA TOLKACHOV, VOLODYMYR BENEDYCHUK, KSENIJA BILYK, GANNA BRIZHATA, VOVA VOROTNIOV, UWE BERMEITINGER. Curated by SEENTAX
IRA LUPU
MODEL AT HOME (photo series, 2016-2018)
MODEL AT HOME is a photo project documenting professional Ukrainian model Yulia Polieva and her everyday life in her native city of Mykolaiv, one of the most brutal administrative centers in Ukraine. Shot during the model’s forays into home life between international working visits, the project explores the inner conflict of a person and its given job which peaks in the domestic environment, in detachment from working conditions. Additionally, the series reveal how professional modeling habits and behavior break into the basis of a human self, influencing the relationships with camera in everyday life and creating fixed patterns in self-representation. A homogeneous stack of images in a central part of a display reflects the reproduction and replication as fundamental principles of fashion modeling.
QAZAQ SECRET TAPES (Hi-8 cassette video, 2018)
The project unites tree visual novels shot in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan in summer 2018. The first story, SILK WAY, is a digital fairy tale on a journey to adulthood shot at glass maze in a shopping mall in Astana. EPHEMERA is a collection of portrayals of daily life in Bishkek, Almaty, and Borovoe. And KIDS is a contemplative overview of Kazakh youngsters challenging the conservative traditions of their land.