For this project, The Lab is hosting a Russian ceramic artist, disciplined in the Arts of Theatre, Elizabeta is installaing her studio in The Lab, to study her longing for homeland nature. There is no curatorial text, as this is a poetic project, gentle and smooth like the porcelain she uses. Guseva wrote this text, almost a poem, and as the curator, I chose not to intervene and live it as it is:
I used to live in Russia. I saw dirty wet leaves in autumn, snow, ice,
cracks on niveous slabs on river shores, snowfalls, first sun after a
long winter.
Now I live in Israel. Now I see the sea and the sun over it, dry sandy
land, dark nights, and the sky full of stars. Even the moon was turned
differently in this southern part of the earth.
Every fact I remember from my previous life is tightly emotionally
related to nature images. Fragments of my childhood, my
house, my good or bad mood, periods of loneliness and love
always are bound to the season of the year, the weather and
with the flavor of the air.
Here in Israel, I feel time differently. It’s more like a line or a flat
surface. Most of the year the
weather stays the same. The first rare
raindrops that come after a long hot summer are a miracle.
Once, my porcelain flat piece split in the kiln while firing. In it I saw
the river shore
covered with cracked snow slabs. There is a time at the beginning of
spring when the sun starts to shine stronger. Ice is melting, ice
pieces go down the river. The air is fresh and there is a sound of
crystal
ringing in the air.
Clay allows me to reach the places of my birthland and my
home, which I miss. And also, to understand better the new place,
where I am located
now. Now I contain both: snow fields and warm sea waves
Photography: Anna Dolginova, Elizaveta Guseva, sharon Toval
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