5. 8. – 19. 9. 2024
Open Studio: 27. 8. 2024
Residency outcome: 19. 9. 2024
Curator and author of the text: Daniela Šiandorová
Imagine that you are flying over a city whose majestic towers are slowly getting closer and closer to you—your feet, your body. Your gaze is fixed on the landscape spreading out into the distance below you. Gradually, you recognize eclectic shapes and details of architectural styles which are unfamiliar to you. It is not only the architecture that is unfamiliar, but the inhabitants of this city also seem invisible from above. The silent breath wafts along with an unprecedented movement, organic and natural, gently following the contours of the rivers and hills.
Who can live in this city? Is it a representation of human civilization? What political, social, or cultural system rules the city? Only the shapes of the buildings and the rhythm of the city, whose system can only be revealed to keen observers, can give us the answers.
Yury Beryozkin’s project grows out of the industrial Pragovka site as a living culture which is marked by its own history written in the outwardly lost documents of the old car factory Praga. When he stepped his foot on the site nearly eight years ago for the very first time as it was being appropriated by artists-in-residence creating the vision of today, he had no idea that by appropriating the abandoned materials, he would save a part of the local historic memory. The documents became the physical attribute for a multi-year cycle of ceramic sites of which the God’s Kitchen is currently the last one.
During his residency at Pragovka Gallery, Beryozkin created a utopian city which is a jigsaw puzzle of buildings and infrastructures with complex amenities and social relations. He focused on the aesthetics of architecture and the public environment which have subtly influenced the lives of the city’s inhabitants. Fascinated by urban planning, he explored the cultural and historical values of the territory as well as the creation of landscapes with the principles of sustainable development which he reflected via the basic working material of clay. Just as every city is made of layers, clay carries the geological layers and the vicissitudes of time. This raw material, rooted in our landscape, represents the connection between the past and the present as it is the embodiment of constant transformation. It is a living material subjected to endless metamorphosis, symbolizing not only the vulnerability of human settlements, but also their ability to survive and renew themselves, albeit in a new and different form.
The God’s Kitchen project is a reflection on the endless cycles of creation and extinction. It is a metaphor for temporary existence in the ever-changing reality of humanity.
Yury Beryozkin is an artist working as a ceramicist, miniature creator, painter, performer, and video narrator. Originally from Minsk, Belarus, he studied sculpture in Prague, Czech Republic. At the residency in Marseille, he sharpened his talent for creating ceramic pieces and building cities from unfired clay. The creation process guided him to a specific kind of architecture that combines soft natural body forms and solid artificial structures, such as panel buildings or landmarks of ancient times. Reflections of the religion can be found in the eyes of John the Baptist, kindly served on the plate by the snaky desires of Salome as the symbol of Ishtar. Diving into the story of every piece, Yury let sculptures be broken or damaged with time and fixed after.
