Attractions
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Amusement parks, circular movements, emotional overload, behavioral addictions — these are the motifs that define a new series of works by Ilina Chervonnaya, the source material for which is her own archive of sketches, observations and photographs collected in various amusement parks (ubiquitous satellites of most places of mass tourism). Various visual elements (rich palette, swirling shapes, pulsating light lines) of these specific spaces, in which realism merges with phantasmagoria, are reflected in the artist's tactile textile works. In her sculptural embroideries, ilina translates digital images into a visceral textile* format, as if exaggerating the enchanting, enveloping, and pain-suspending function inherent to these places. But at the same time, through the choice of a certain type of textile*, the artist takes into account that these places are rooted in the fabric of reality as enterprises historically generated by the machine of war capitalism (the main source of this very pain).
* Cotton is used as textile, which is the most important product of the industrial era. In fact, cotton was the cradle of industrialization. It was because of it that new types of industrial productionemerged. According to Sven Beckert, the factories themselves were an invention of the cotton industry. In his book Empire of Cotton. World History, Beckert clearly shows what the connection was between slave agriculture in America and industrial production in Europe. In turn, a product of industrial era, amusement parks grew out of private parks of the elite and served as safety valves to maintain the existing social order
If one looks closely at these two works chosen for the exhibition, it is possible to detect similarities in them. But, if in one case, one of the so-called “treasures in paradise”—a carousel ride**—with a visitor willing to jump on it is guessed, then in the case of another work, the magical world of heavenly pleasure shatters into fragments. So the audience can become eyewitnesses to the process of half-decay (watching, as if in slow motion, the euphoric experience of a carousel passenger, which would precede his death/transition to another state due to prolonged cerebral hypoxia caused by huge emotional overloads...)
**The main means of entertainment in most amusement parks, according to the China National Corporation, which sells attractions for parks around the world, are considered to be the so-called “three treasures in paradise”: a carousel, a Ferris wheel and a (Russian/American) roller coaster. The carousel, whose historical ancestor was a device used to train knights/warriors and hunters, has evolved into a machine entirely dedicated to entertainment (targeted mainly at children).