Alive_not_ Alive
project | experiment
the Alvar Aalto Library, Vyborg, Russia
September, 2021 — December, 2022Manufactured objects of different shapes and sizes were placed next to the library and inside it. They represented diverse manifestations of the organic world – natural phenomena, processes and living organisms. These objects were here to remind us what the architect Alvar Aalto was thinking when he built the library: the complexity of the world of nature, which people share with many other lifeforms. A world which lives and reveals itself between the walls of old houses and inside abandoned mansions, in the park around the library, in the depths of the forest outside the town, within us and alongside us. All of these things are elements of the most complex system of relations from which the idea of the library grew. This was an experiment: how extraneous things that were alive | not alive could coexist in the building, and how long this coexistence would last. The project continued for five months.
🦡🌪 🐳 Alive_not_ Alive 🍢 🌓 🌳
Team
Olesya Gonserovskaya
Artist / Concept / Research / Objects / Graphic & Drawings / Texts / Setup in the Alvar Aalto Library /
Lidiia Griaznova
Curator /Concept / Research / Texts / Design & Typesetting (Website and Book )
We worked with
Aleksandra Smirnova (scientific descriptions)
Anastasiia Zubareva (copy editor/ru)
Dmitry Koldyaev (chat-bot and photo)
Dasha Igby (photo and video)/
With the support by Elena Rogosina and Elena Pekki (Alvar Aalto library) and Varvara Egorva (CYLAND MediaArtLab).
Contact us
💌gonserovskaya🐕gmail.com
💌 lidiiagriaznova🐩gmail.com
—Give me more about what you did!
—Sure thing!
Artificial objects of various shapes and sizes were placed inside the Aalto library and next to it. They represented different manifestations of the organic world.
These objects were to remind during their presence there about what architect Alvar Aalto had i n mind when he creat ed this library: about the complex organisation of the natural world, which peo ple share with many other lifeforms.
About a world which li ves and manifests itself between w a l l s of century-old houses and inside abandoned mansions, in the park around the library, i n t he depth of the fore st outside the city, inside us and next to us. All of these are elements of t h e co mplex system of relations fro m which t h e i dea of the library grew. Our project t h ere was an experiment: how the temporally added extraneous “alive / not alive” objects will find a place in t he building, how l on g this cohabitation will las t .
Th e objects stayed there for five months, from September 2021 to January 2022.
They coexisted with everyday lif e within a library, qu i c k l y d i s a pp e ar ed, slowly de formed from humidity, cove re d w i t h dust ; some of them were neatly stuck in a g r o u p or st o le n, or displaced, or left unnoticed al l t h is time. Live went on in its recognisable forms. Olesya mad e a mind m ap w i t h people’s sayings and h e r field n otes of how peo ple r e a c t e d w h e n they encountered with h er or with objects in t h e l ib r ary .
Paper sculptures under the ceiling, on the windows and bathroom mirrors; sensor installations on bookshelves, fl at paper objects hidden in books, papier-mâché, assemblages on walls, glass cases, windowpanes and doors.
These objects only distantly resemble their sources. We didn’t want to exhibit some “educational” models which will imitate nature but to appear inside the established order and temporarily set up a variety of other-than-human modes of living.
Other, but familiar, if to think of them as the survival strategies and defence modes, tricks and loop- holes useful for day-to-day life in infra/structures of a human-made world. The COVID pandemic and the following restrictions for public spaces affected how our idea was realised. We planned that the encounter with each object would be accidental. But rules and protocols of safe behaviour turned them into predicted, pre-planned and burdened with instructions routes.
🐜 No wanderings, only precise actions, please.🪨
We decided to do the project anyway and let it be along with the newly introduced algorithms of existence. Instead of actively observing others process, it turned into an inspection of ourselves. How we feel, describe, name all of you — alive and not alive neighbours — what we do to you for you and with you. We fi nished the project in the Aalto Library two months before the russian invasion of Ukraine start- ed. It is tempting to think retrospectively about what might have been done differently in general and our lives. What can be done when you feel small compared to forces of money and power who escape from naming themselves and admitting their deeds? — Small deeds if feeling small. Bigger if there is capacity and the slightest possibility to do so.
—And later, we did a book:
Created here and there, in between Turkey and Estonia. September 2021 —January 2022; printed and bounded in Estonia, August 2023
︎︎︎︎︎︎ Video preview ︎︎︎︎︎︎
PDF version for download here / If you are interesting to get a print copy mail me (lidiiagriaznova🦑gmail.com)
Lomechusa
A beetle, lives in ant heaps; produce a glandular secretion that is pleasant for ants, so they put up with L.; beg for food, imitating ants behaviour (by hitting whiskers against the ant’s head); feeds by ants and lays eggs resembling ants’ eggs. L. larvae eat the ants’ eggs and larvae and then learn to beg for food as well, so it allowing L. to continue breeding.
Location: the glass wall in the entrance hall.