We are on the excavations of the future

On November 28 at 19:00 in the Small Hall of the Russian State Library for Youth there will be a presentation of Natalya Oparina’s personal exhibition “We are at the excavations of the future”, dedicated to reflections on the topic of chontology, or “phantasy” - the attempts of descendants to turn the dreams and projects of the previous generation into reality.

The objects of the exhibition will be: video, installations, sculptures, paintings.

Hontology is a term coined by the French philosopher Jacques Derrida. Hontology in culture and art is how the descendants of unfulfilled hopes, aspirations and unfulfilled projects of past eras seek to embody them in the present or at least give them a proper place in historical discourse, cultural memory, and memories.

Soviet cutting boards, fire and disaster sculptures, anthropomorphic creatures from a utopian future are all images of the post-truth era, a state of society accurately depicted in George Orwell’s 1984.

The space of the exhibition “We Are in the Excavations of the Future” is divided into two parts.

The first explores the traumas of the past through the material. The key objects are boards made in the cuchitalieri technique and embodying the philosophy “in ruins there is a future”.

The second half of the exhibition space reflects the state of the future, presented as a utopia. In this part, anthropomorphic creatures help in the fight against the fragile and disturbing present.

The exhibition will run until December 14th.

Curators: Anatoly Kodintsev, Daniil Levites.

NATALIE OPARINA. The artist, a philologist by education (PFUR), studied at the Joseph Bakshtein Institute of Contemporary Art, works with found objects, painting, sculpture, and installation. I did an internship in Sicily - this experience allowed me to find and develop the idea of integrity, to compare another culture with my own. In 2021, she was at the residence of Katya Sokolovskaya.