The River
With Thin Skin

The work "The River With Thin Skin" was inspired by Olivia Laing’s book “To the River. A journey beneath the surface”, in which the writer went through the Uz from source to mouth, telling along the way about both personal experience and other historical events related to this river. I traveled together with Olivia while reading the book, and I was thinking about the rivers of my life. In Crimea, it is Belbek, sometimes drying up, cool, with a winding, sandy mouth flowing into the Black Sea. It reminds me of my practice in the university, walks with Anton and a cemetery on the shore. Then there was Moscow river with ices-bridges. I walked along the promenade, all alone, waiting for the future. And now it’s cozy, thin, Rotte river, along which I'm biking slowly. Not only my personal stories are connected to these rivers, but also big historical events of different times and their personal geological story. Our feelings, history and landscape form the space of memory. Humankind influences nature not only physically, but also emotionally, by humanizating it. In order to use this way of communication, I build my rivers as landscapes with human’s body parts. The river with its arms pulls inside, sees everything, stores everything and continues to run.