Olia Fedorova is a Kharkiv-based artist whose work is centered around several major themes: the study of emptiness and the filling of space with different methods: text, one’s own body, or objects brought into this space. In addition, self-reflection is very characteristic of the artist – rethinking both her work and the artistic environment as a whole.
In 127 garage, Olia will show a project that will simultaneously become a fixation of her growth and development. We called this exhibition a retrospective precisely because the audience will see not just one work of the artist, but a slice of her work in recent years. With the help of the collection of objects that Olia used to create her works, one can trace the development of the artist and analyze the artistic process.
“For about two years now, I have not been making “material” art – one that could be touched, hung on a wall, put under glass, or placed on a cabinet. I stopped renting a workshop because I realized that I had nothing more to produce in it. My works are actions. Their existence lasts from several minutes to several days. The photographs that remain after are, in fact, the only documentation of these actions, a fixation of their commission – but not independent works of art. In my works, I use many material objects. For a while, they become objects of art – exactly as long as the action of which they are a part lasts. When this action is completed – a minute or a few days later – the magic disappears, and these objects again become what they were. I can still reuse some of them, like ordinary household items, but most of the objects had meaning and special value only at the time of the action – after that, they essentially turned into trash. Well, or into artifacts that keep the memory of the past days, from which, like the shards from the excavation, you can read the story of my career”.
