Alexandra Nesterkina's project Harmonium explores the unity of the ‘nature-man-space’ triad elements. The works created during Nesterkina's stay on the premises of the Special Astrophysical Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Nizhny Arkhyz reveal hidden links in the visible world.
Harmonium is a full-fledged cosmogonic construction where objects found in the vicinity of Nizhny Arkhyz coexist with figures made from locally sourced clay, which logically continue the artist’s research and simultaneously resemble Scythian artefacts with their characteristic animal style. The layering of archaic cultures and civilisations, Soviet ruins, scientific and space research activities, wildlife and everyday life falls into a kaleidoscope whose impressions, images, symbols, and snippets Nesterkina captures in her works that feature the fictional civilization of the Ninth Planet, the remains of magical objects, ruins from the recent past, and, of course, the elements.
In cultures closely associated with nature, the relationship between humans and the universe did not require complex mediation rituals. For example, in ancient Greece, a statue of a deity could be replaced by a simple pillar during worship. The deceptive simplicity of the found objects and ceramic sculptures by Alexandra Nesterkina echoes the times when the entire world was the cosmos that had to be comprehended sensually and not rationally.
Harmonium is a full-fledged cosmogonic construction where objects found in the vicinity of Nizhny Arkhyz coexist with figures made from locally sourced clay, which logically continue the artist’s research and simultaneously resemble Scythian artefacts with their characteristic animal style. The layering of archaic cultures and civilisations, Soviet ruins, scientific and space research activities, wildlife and everyday life falls into a kaleidoscope whose impressions, images, symbols, and snippets Nesterkina captures in her works that feature the fictional civilization of the Ninth Planet, the remains of magical objects, ruins from the recent past, and, of course, the elements.
In cultures closely associated with nature, the relationship between humans and the universe did not require complex mediation rituals. For example, in ancient Greece, a statue of a deity could be replaced by a simple pillar during worship. The deceptive simplicity of the found objects and ceramic sculptures by Alexandra Nesterkina echoes the times when the entire world was the cosmos that had to be comprehended sensually and not rationally.
