My installation is named The Watermelon, or “Arbuz” (in Russian).

This fusion object is totally in the line with my aesthetic ideas and visual language – as I always praise the connection to irregularity of nature, with rawness being essential to the concept.

The berry has been growing more than for one year – it started spontaneously from a collection of small objects my dog used to grab on the streets. 

It's is a very personal project, as choosing, cutting and eating a watermelon always bring back my childhood memories. For us, late Soviet kids, food had been often symbolic, and watermelons were the essence of summer and happiness. From July to the end of September, the season was in full swing. The family gathered at one table to enjoy a huge sugar watermelon, and after we finished with its pink flesh, the peel was used to make candies, and seeds were fried and salted. Now, when we are all separated – by physical distance or emotionally, – it seems like all that still holds us together are those family rituals from the past.

I went through a long ritual of a different kind. During the lockdowns and my personal vulnerable times, I was busy connecting one small item, left and broken, to another small piece – dropped by a stranger and instantly forgotten. 

Gradually, I assembled them all back together into this symbolic form of Arbuz, aka Watermelon.