Art Exhibition ~Adult Experience~ at the Modern Art Research Institute of Ukraine.

Exhibition of School of Contemporary Art

Mastasa / No one / 2019 / Installation / Wood

Curator Victoria Burlaka about the exhibition "Adult Experience":

What is an "adult" experience? For me, this is the ability to analyze and fully realize what is happening to you - I hate the word given by the coach of all suits, but I do not find another, more adequate one. I apologize, that from the first person, but the adult experience - it is only personal. Changing with time, I think I'm getting older. The close ones continue to call me an irreparable idealist: "You see people as you want to see. It's time to look right in the eyes ..." Maybe he came - so he did not grow older yet, but he needs to grow older, although it's painful. Human nature, for example, in adolescence seems terrible, tragically imperfect. All around idiots - except you, of course. So you think, while in life you do not face something like this, like Milligram's experiment - under certain conditions, anyone, even the golden man himself, can hurt, maybe a kite for another. Therefore, it is easier not to divide people into bad and good ones - they are good and bad, and smart and stupid - depending on the circumstances and manipulations of others. "Like a knock, and a rumbling, do not hurt another, otherwise they will hurt you" - apparently, this is my quintessence of adult experience. How not to be disturbed, but the wisest philosophy of life is Buddhism with its inaction of evil to anybody and nothing. I myself do not admit this, but somewhere in the depths of my heart I believe in karma, samsara and so on ... As loyal as to others, I try to treat myself to life itself, to what we call fate - there is no good, no evil destiny, luck or bad luck. Life is neutral, we ourselves, by our actions, absolutely imperceptibly, step by step we weave his canvas, moving in a certain direction. Each step generates a stake.

Experience - this is something definitely valuable, dry residue, something that comes from any disappointments and troubles. Not a fool has come up with the statement "precious experience" - it is a positive baggage, with which it is easier to make a map of reality, and, to some extent, an anesthetic. This is a very interesting, fascinating process of knowing the world. Every day, every new person brings you a fraction of a new experience - you know with age everything is different, how insurmountable is an abyss of a different understanding of life even between two people. Gradually you give up pink glasses and overpriced expectations. Experience is getting rid of illusions. As in that wise anecdote: "I thought it was love, and this is again experience." Healthy irony, and most importantly, self-irony - always relevant ...

But the main criterion for adolescence is the ability to deal adequately with the circumstances, respond to the challenges that give us life. It is known to be quite cruel. Again, the Buddhist postulate rescues - life is a pain, it has noticed long before us, and since then nothing has fundamentally changed. With this one has to live somehow. Diseases, losses, betrayal - sometimes it kills, and sometimes - makes stronger. The ability to take responsibility for your own life and the lives of loved ones - from the same series. Based on the foregoing, it is clear: the adult experience is vast. Each of the participants of the exhibition offers his understanding of it - from something playfully sexy to complex metaphors of life's way. And some of the necessity of maturation in general deny - and have this full right, life in the illusion looks comfortable and safe ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_3EUiDFgns

Mastasa about installation:

This work, I decided to put an end between who I am and the one who was 15 years ago. In a sense, this is my personal memorial service for a black day in my life from school, which has kept in itself for many years, as a “favorite” scar. Sometimes she showed to others: ”look, look, what a scar! can you see oh, how I can suffer, look at this scar! yes, it still hurts, see? ”. I held the little girl with the scar by the hand and dragged her along through time and relationships.

Once, I was boycotted. Hike to the teachers and the psychologist just spoiled everything. My apologies were not accepted (yes, I remember what I got for!) We went to a physical train and I called one girl “a word”, but she heard it behind her back and she did not like it. The girl who was dragging the hair of the younger ones when they didn’t look at her or giggled like that, who was always aggressive and ready to fight. I was still not ashamed to call people or phenomena by their names and did not know that sooner or later I would have to answer for my words.

One day I was showered with paper. I really wanted to fly out of the class, but I sat. I ordered myself to sit still! On the same day, everything ended with the phrase: “you are nobody!”. A strange thing, as I allowed these words to corrode myself for more than 7 years.

At that period of time, I began to write poems about death, cutting the blade of my leg so that it was not visible. Since then, and ceased to be with you. No longer wanted to speak, draw posters, go to competitions. I stopped saying what I thought, stopped protecting myself. I stopped breathing.

If it seems to you that to achieve a person who is lost in trust is a difficult task, then returning trust from yourself after such internal betrayal is a task from the Apollo series. All the same, that you have beaten and exhausted an animal for years, and now you stretch your hand in the hope that it will recognize you and wag the tail.

Yes, no matter how wrong!

For the last 4 years I have been able to raise this topic, not without shaking hands, but I can. Thanks to the community of artists. Only last year I began to feel the long-awaited inner freedom. Where, I'm not a freak. Where I am surrounded by my people. Where my activity is encouraged. No clash of interests or a struggle for territory. There is no struggle for the attention of groups of people. I feel in my place, the puzzle in the big picture and all the puzzles in it are beautiful in their own way.

Bouling, this is a newfangled word lately, but it's not new. It was before, it is happening now. It concerned indirectly or directly everyone.

I fervently wish that our children do not come across this. So that at least some knowledge from us is prepared how to react in a similar situation. So that we, as parents know and could help our children.

Interestingly, I felt that something was wrong. You know, when your skin feels that you annoy someone with your presence and no matter what you do or say, a spark has occurred in a person and that's it. Who knows why this happened. Maybe that girl had her own problems. And so she decided her pain while keeping the balance with herself, but at the same time, she knocked me out of balance.

I no longer intend to waste time on this long-impotent conflict, which I wish everyone. =) And those who did not know how I felt then, here you are. Just do not dare to pity me! I was not healed for this =)

Come check out my installation at the Institute of Contemporary Art. (admission free, exhibition until February 12th and longer)

I liked that the installation of some people raised completely different feelings, other internal issues.

What do you feel?

09: 00-19: 00

January 22 - February 12

Modern Art Research Institute of Ukraine Kyiv, str. Evgeniya Konovaltsa 18-d

entrance free